


Star Wars: Blue

by JollyJak



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, BAMF Gwen Stacy, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Evil Tony Stark, Gen, Gwen-centric, Is anyone reading this?, Mash-up, Movie: Star Wars: A New Hope, Space Opera, Space Pirates, Sweet Miles Morales, That's Not How The Force Works, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:28:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 52,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25390894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JollyJak/pseuds/JollyJak
Summary: It's a time of turmoil for the Galactic Empire. Rebel nationalists continue to gain influence throughout the galaxy, fighting a war of attrition even as the Empire tightens its hold to bring security to the people. With the Jedi Order a distant memory and the galactic senate fast on its way to being dismantled, the iron grip of Emperor Stark is nearly complete.All of this is but a distant concern to Gwen Stacy, who has spent the latter half of her life safely ensconced aboard her father's Imperial cruiser while he goes about mundane security details to keep the peace and maintain order. It was supposed to be a safe existence, if also boring at times. Her quiet life is thrown for a loop one day when the ship finds itself being boarded by pirates, and Gwen is thrust out into the midst of a conflict that had previously seemed so inconsequential. Without Dad, without the trappings of her previous life, will she be able to find her way back?And once she learns of the galaxy-wide strife caused by the Empire, will she even want to?
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Star Wars and Marvel. Yes, it's been done before, but this lodged itself in my brain and absolutely refused to leave. I consider it less a crossover and more of a mash-up, where the roles of iconic Star Wars characters will be taken up by Marvel stand-ins. Due to the fact that the Marvel characters are going to retain much of their personalities, this will also impact story beats, and I'll say up front that this isn't a shot-for-shot remake of A New Hope with Marvel characters. Things will be different enough that I think this should be a rather entertaining jaunt.
> 
> Anyway, read on.

Alderaan was often called the Planet of Beauty, serving as a hub for all things cultured and fine in the galaxy. The most thought-provoking art, the most stirring music, the most profound philosophical musings, even the most brilliant wines—all came from Alderaan, and it was a known fact even in the Outer Rim territories. Knowing that his wine was enjoyed not only by Coruscanti aristocrats but Corellian pirate lords and Nar Shaddaa mobsters was a point of perverse pride for the less scrupulous vintners.

The planet was also Gwen Stacy’s home, though she hadn’t been back in several years. Dad’s career had seen to that.

Staring out the window at the inky blackness of empty space, the stark lighting of her quarters created a mirror-like effect in the glass, allowing her a translucent look at her own mopey reflection. A pale, drawn girl of sixteen stared back at her, wanting for sunlight, for fresh air. Too much of her life for the past few years had been spent aboard this very ship, bouncing from system to system while Dad oversaw various military maneuvers that she wasn’t allowed to know about. The Stacy head of blonde hair—her mom’s hair—had lost its golden sheen and grown the sallow color of straw, bleached by the fluorescents that washed everything in this ship of every color except gunmetal gray and clinical plastic white.

In short, she hated it here. Even a brief trip to Alderaan for some debriefing or another was sure to lift her spirits. She was allowed a fair amount of freedom planetside while Dad took care of his work, and while they wouldn’t be landing anywhere near home (in fact, the planetary capital of Aldera was on nearly the opposite side of Alderaan as her hometown of Delaney), the simple idea that she would be setting foot on her home planet filled her with a sense of indescribable longing.

And that was a sad fact in and of itself.

“How long until we arrive, TC-9?”

Behind her own reflection, she saw her assigned protocol droid shifting as it was addressed, the movement the only indication that TC-9 was a separate entity from the drab metal walls around it. Yellow eyes flickered as the droid stiffly ambled closer to her. The TC-series of droids were human enough in shape, but their utility was in protocol and translation; they weren’t designed to do much more than walk and speak.

“In approximately twenty minutes we will arrive at the designated hyperspace jump point,” TC-9 told her in a synthesized male voice that carried all the Imperial poshness most ship-bound droids did in the Imperial Navy. Gwen didn’t care for the inflection; it only exemplified the foreignness of her surroundings since Dad’s promotion to Captain of his own ship, a Cantwell-class Arrestor Cruiser. She missed conversations where it didn’t feel like everyone was talking down to her. Here on the _Sentinel_ , the Captain’s daughter was the closest thing to royalty, a delicate porcelain doll to be protected from the harshness of war.

“How long will we be in hyperspace?” Gwen asked.

“Two hours and fifteen minutes’ time,” TC-9 said with a single nod of its head. “You must be quite pleased to be going back home.”

“I guess,” she shrugged. “We’re going to Aldera, but at least it’s my home planet, right?”

“Many your age would consider it exciting to travel in space and live among the stars,” TC-9 consoled her. “Every day is a new adventure, yes?”

“Maybe,” Gwen admitted. “Not _my_ adventure, though.”

……

“Captain, we’re approaching the jump point,” DeWolf spoke from George’s elbow, and he knew without even looking that she was standing crisply at attention as she relayed the information. “Shall I give the order to engage the hyperdrive?”

“Affirmative, DeWolf,” George said with a nod. In front of him, a massive bank of screens and holodisplays told him that the _Sentinel_ had brushed up against the gravity well of the nearest planet, a desert wasteland known as Tatooine. They were well away from the Core, and though the official stance was that no world lay out of the Empire’s grasp, this one was at least floating on its fingertips. Frankly, George didn’t see much point in the last several months’ attempts at constructing an outpost in this particular section of the Outer Rim. The Tatoo system was the galactic equivalent of a desert, with its most prominent feature a planet comprised entirely of sand baked nearly to glass under the heat of binary suns.

“Hyperdrive is primed and engaged, Captain,” DeWolf said. “Awaiting your command.”

“Standby,” George said, his eyes still on the bank of displays. They hadn’t quite left Tatooine’s gravity well, and even the slightest shift in their trajectory would send them lightyears off course if they took off too soon. Best case scenario, they wound up stranded in open space; worst case, an asteroid field would obliterate them.

He hadn’t gotten to be Captain of his own cruiser by being hasty.

“When’s the last time you visited your daughter?” DeWolf asked, and George finally turned to see her with the exact stern expression he’d pictured.

“We spent the weekend together in my office,” he said. “She got every minute of my free time.”

“Oh, is that so?” DeWolf asked in a wry voice. “You know, if you were planning to drag her along on this tour, the least you could have done is set aside some actual father-daughter bonding time. Most girls her age have a circle of friends to fall back on when their father is too engaged in his job.”

It was a mark of their friendship that DeWolf even dared voice such an opinion with no fear of repercussions for what was undeniably flagrant insubordination.

“I’d rather have her here on the ship where I can watch over her than tucked away in some military school on Coruscant,” George insisted. “If that means working construction site security detail until she’s old enough to be on her own, so be it.”

“And all that means you can’t be part of her life?” DeWolf asked. “You’ve accrued quite a lot of vacation time. Why not actually _visit_ Alderaan instead of showing up just for some debriefing by the admiralty? That girl has been through so much already, Geor – Captain.”

“She has,” George muttered. “I can agree with that.”

“Captain,” a voice spoke from the far wall, and George turned to see an ensign turning from his station. “We’re clear of Tatooine’s gravity well.”

“Thank you, Ensign,” George nodded. “Bring us about and prepare to – “

The ship shuddered as he spoke, and several red lights sprang up on the bank of holodisplays in front of him. At the same time, another ensign shouted from a nearby station.

“Captain, we’re reading multiple energy-based impacts!” he said, poking furiously at the screen. “EMP blasts! They’re targeting the shields.”

The lights flickered briefly as he spoke, and George hurried over to his station. A readout of the ship was showing a few red flickers near the shield generator.

“I want a visual on the enemy!” he shouted to the bridge. “Divert power from the hyperdrive and man the cannons! Tell Commander Danvers to get out there and engage!”

“Aye, Captain!” several voices chorused. The lights flickered again, and this time the ship quaked enough that George felt it underfoot. A klaxon-like wail went up, piercing his ears with the descending keen of the alarm. It was the first time he’d ever heard the noise with his own ears.

“Sir, shields are down,” an ensign said frantically. “I think…we’re being boarded.”

……

_The sunset was beautiful, painting the small park near her home in a breathtaking riot of golden light. The distant mountains gleamed a brilliant array of colors; the particular composition of the planet’s ozone layer meant every sunrise and sunset was picturesque and unforgettable. A popular sentiment among the galactic tourism industry was that you could watch an Alderaanian sunset from anywhere on the planet and be amazed. Gwen liked to agree._

_“Here you are. I thought you’d come back here.”_

_She didn’t look up at the sound of Dad’s voice; she couldn’t even look at him right now, didn’t want to see the understanding and compassion in his expression. Dad had this way of completely dispelling her anger—if she had her mother’s fiery temper, his disposition was a cool bucket of water able to wash it away in seconds—but if she let him do that to her this time, she would only be left with a gnawing sadness, a sense of empty loss._

_“Can you look at me?” he asked._

_“No,” Gwen groused, staring down at her knees. “I’m mad at you.”_

_“Gwendy…”_

_“No!” Gwen huffed, knowing how much she sounded like a petulant toddler. Dad had been saying for weeks that turning ten years old was going to be a milestone for her, that she would have to start behaving like a young woman instead of a young girl. Well, if he was gonna be a butt and make her leave her home behind, then phooey on being a young woman!_

_Dad settled onto the park bench next to Gwen, and she made it a point to scoot as far away from him as she could without falling off the side. His soft chuckle made her cheeks heat up; he was laughing at her!_

_“You have your mother’s spirit,” he said fondly. “Her fire.”_

_“_ She _wouldn’t wanna go live on some boring ship either,” Gwen insisted, and Dad let a sigh._

_“No,” he said. “She wouldn’t. And if she was still here, I could leave you with her and not have to take you away from the life you love. Believe me, Gwendy, this doesn’t make me happy, to drag you along with me. But it’s the way of things. Hopefully, you’ll thank me for this someday. Until then, I only hope you can…bear with me. And understand that everything I’ve done, everything I do, I do because I love you. Don’t you ever forget that.”_

_Well…that just wasn’t very fair of him! Dad had this way of making her feel like she couldn’t keep being mad at him without being_ mean _to him in the process. He never put up a fight, never bit back at her lashing out, just calmly let her burn out and come back for a hug._

_And that’s exactly what Gwen did, huffing as she scooted toward him and dropped against his side to nestle into the crook of his arm._

_“I love you too, Dad,” she said softly, looking up into his eyes. He said nothing for a moment, and there was an odd noise like a bird in the background, but steady and rhythmic._

_“Miss Stacy,” Dad said in a voice that wasn’t his own. It was somewhat modulated, a posh Imperial accent twisting the words. “Miss Stacy!”_

And suddenly, she was awake, wondering how she’d even been sleeping through the clamor of alarm bells around her. Looming overhead, TC-9’s backlit yellow eyes seemed to gleam brighter than ever in the dim red emergency lighting. The ship had lost primary power and was running on the backup generator. All ancillary systems would be nonfunctional.

“What happened?” Gwen asked, springing to her feet and hurrying to slide into a pair of shoes. As she hurried for her dresser, the ship shook around her, accompanied by the distantly muffled sound of cannon fire.

“The ship is taking fire!” TC-9 said, which Gwen thought rather obvious. Protocol droids weren’t known for their ability to read subtext, however, so she didn’t bother to point this out.

“By who?” she pressed, fishing around in her sock drawer and eventually unearthing her prize. Despite the fact that it was completely against Imperial military regulations (and several Imperial laws), Dad had made sure Gwen was protected in exactly such an event as this. Strapping a belt and holster around her waist, Gwen extricated a DL-44—a blaster pistol that was surprisingly heavy for its size—and gripped it in her hand.

“I’m not sure,” TC-9 said. “The ship they’re flying is Corellian, but so many disparate organizations fly Corellian-made ships that I can’t begin to – “

The door burst open in a hail of sparks, and Gwen dove behind her dresser as TC-9 was thrown against the bulkhead before crumpling in a heap onto the ground. Crouching behind her meager cover, Gwen clutched the blaster in shaking hands. Despite regular trips to the cruiser’s shooting range, she’d never once actually shot _at_ someone, and the prospect now was rather daunting to consider. Still, pirates weren’t known for their hospitality, especially in regards to a girl like her—young and conventionally attractive as she was, Gwen was a prime target for the galactic slave trade that saw so many hapless twi’leks victimized.

She had to find a way past them, even if it involved a messy solution.

Heavy boots thudded into the room, and Gwen saw the reflection of two pirates in the window. They seemed to be wearing some kind of uniform comprised of mud-colored leathers, but her attention was much more focused on the blaster rifles they toted. A pirate wasn’t likely to worry over the details of whether a specific weapon modification was legal or not, meaning those guns were sure to pack a punch. The two pirates exchanged a look before surveying the room.

“Girl’s room,” one of them spoke in a guttural voice. Gwen saw an array of spikes over his skull marking him as a zabrak, though he didn’t bear the signature facial tattoos. He’d probably been raised by his pirate clan and absorbed none of the rich culture of his people. “Weird place to have a kid.”

“Lot of Imperial officers don’t want their kids sent to those military academies on Coruscant,” the other spoke up in a smoother voice. He was a human, his accent most definitely Corellian. Gwen might even have thought him handsome, under different circumstances. “They pick the boring jobs, construction sites and stuff. Bring the kid along, spend some time with ‘em. Keep ‘em outta the Imperial brainwash.”

“Fascinating,” the zabrak said, though his flat tone spoke otherwise. Shaking herself, Gwen clutched the blaster pistol in her hand. The pair were slowly creeping further into the room; if she could just make her way past them….

“Hey!” the human said, and Gwen saw him staring at her reflection in the window before turning and looking down at her with a leer. “Playin’ hide and seek? Not a very good – “

_PEW!_

Gwen raised the blaster and fired it, wincing a bit at the noise it made. The DL-44 wasn’t entirely legal to own in Imperial space, especially one as modified as Dad’s was. It was fitting that he’d confiscated it from an illegal arms trader operating out of a garbage scow orbiting Ord Mantell.

“Get her!” the zabrak shouted as Gwen darted past them. Her shot had gone wide and hit the opposite wall, leaving a scorched black circle in the gray of the bulkhead, but it had been enough to distract them. A shot sounded behind her, and a searing heat burned at her calf as she ran, though there was no pain. Out in the corridor, she made a quick right and hurried along through dim red lighting.

Between the low visibility and the wailing of the emergency sirens, it was like running through a warzone, or so Gwen imagined. The sounds of blaster fire were near-constant, echoing through the corridor and mingling with the occasional explosion of a thermal detonator. The thought of Dad somewhere in the middle of this, hurt or possibly worse, almost had her panicking, but Dad’s own words kept her moving forward.

 _“Worry about something you can’t do anything about, and all you’re doing is worrying. What_ can _you do, and what_ should _you do? Find the overlap. Do that.”_

She hurried through the gloom, clutching her blaster at the ready. Shouts and hurried footfalls echoed behind her, but they were soon drowned out by the general cacophony all around. Banking right, she hurried for the mess hall. A buzzing ship such as this always had someone on duty, someone in his bunk, and someone getting lunch. She was a sixteen-year-old girl with a blaster she was only barely able to use; some backup was necessary.

But the mess hall was already empty, having probably been vacated as soon as the alarms had gone up. Half-eaten lunches sat abandoned on the tables, though they were being swiftly scooped up by dutiful cleaning droids oblivious to the mayhem around them. Picking her way through them, Gwen stopped for a moment to catch her breath and ponder that if they survived this, she would dedicate a few days a week to the ship’s gymnasium. There was simply no excuse to be this winded after a sprint down a hallway.

“There she is,” a familiar voice spoke, and Gwen turned to see the zabrak strolling casually into the mess hall. “Why’d you run off? We were having fun.”

“You stay back,” Gwen said, raising the blaster in trembling hands. She hated the way her voice quavered, but there was simply nothing to be done about the bare facts. There was an absolute and terrifyingly real chance of her being killed or worse before this was done. Across the room, the zabrak’s expression shifted from dubious shock at her threat to amusement. Even in the dim lighting, it was probably evident that she was shaking like a leaf.

“You ever fired that thing at someone?” he asked. “You popped it off earlier, but where were you aiming?”

Gwen’s hand twitched as he took a step closer, then another. Her finger tightened around the trigger, but a cold fear clawed at her at the prospect of actually _shooting_ someone. Target dummies and light up bullseyes were one thing, but this was a living, breathing person.

Dad hadn’t exactly taught her how to shoot _those_.

“Let me guess,” the zabrak said. “Daddy gave you that blaster, taught you to fire, shoot a few targets. But he didn’t teach you how to actually take a life, did he?”

She hated how spot-on the assessment was, and even more, she hated the grin he wore when he’d figured it out.

“You know, you’re still doing better than most of the girls we find,” he said in a voice that was probably supposed to be encouraging to her. He was standing meters away now, his hands casually on his hips. “You’re on your feet, you’re pointing a blaster at me. That takes fire.”

He took another step forward, and Gwen realized she’d been lowering the blaster and jerked it back up to point at his nose. Stopping short, he grinned at her again, and Gwen didn’t like the sardonic tilt it had gained.

“I like fire,” he said. “I like girls like you.”

“Stay _back_ ,” Gwen finally managed to say, but the zabrak just shook his head.

“You’re not gonna shoot me,” he said. “You couldn’t hurt a porg.”

_ZAT!_

A shot rang out, and Gwen jumped at the suddenness of the noise. Her eyes darted to the blaster in her hands, but it hadn’t come from her weapon. Before she could ponder too much, the zabrak dropped to his knees and fell at Gwen’s feet.

“The next time that you aim a weapon at a foe, it is advisable to fire it,” a synthetic voice spoke. If possible, it was even dryer than a protocol droid’s and more modulated, lacking the smooth finish that was necessary for etiquette and translation. Loud, metallic footsteps drew nearer to Gwen, and she gasped at the metal humanoid looming through the darkness, his black paint job camouflaging him near-perfectly. “Greetings. I am K-6D5. I am obligated by my programming to rescue you.”

The droid was nearly twice as tall as Gwen (who was admittedly petite for her age) and bore exaggerated proportions. His arms and legs were long and deceptively scrawny-looking, though Gwen knew that they were quite capable of manhandling most anything short of an enraged wookiee. A short but stocky torso bore none of the access ports and control panels that adorned most droids—only Imperial Intelligence was allowed to access this particular model—and a pair of small white eyes gleamed dimly from his head, which was somehow not quite big enough but also blended perfectly with his disproportionate limbs.

“I didn’t know this ship had an enforcer droid,” Gwen said, taken aback by the sudden presence of a (nominally) friendly face. “How long have you been aboard?”

“That is classified information, though it is also simply boring,” K-6D5 told her. His nimble hands (intricately designed to be just as dexterous as any human’s, if not more) moved deftly over the blaster clutched in them, and Gwen recognized it as the rifle the Corellian had been using. Clearly the pair had split up going after her, and the human had run afoul of Kaysix. “It is imperative that we get you to an escape pod. As a civilian, your presence during this conflict will only serve as a distraction and a hindrance to the crew’s attempt to fend off the invaders.”

“Oh, so it’s not about my safety but making sure the good guys win?” Gwen asked wryly even as she stepped over the zabrak and followed Kaysix out of the mess hall.

“Yes,” the droid said flatly. “Follow me, please.”

……

“Where are the astromech droids!?” George called across the bridge. “Radio Danvers and tell her I want a squadron covering them while they fix the shield generators!”

“Aye, Captain!” a voice called back, and George turned back to his monitor bank. Most of the holodisplays were dark or showing static at this point, and the few that remained were ablaze with the chaos that had sprung up on his ship. Through the massive bridge window, a Corellian cargo ship hovered ominously to port. While the ship itself had little in the way of cannons, it had dispatched a swarm of smaller starfighters, which were engaging with the _Sentinel’s_ own squadron of TIE fighters. With the shield generators damaged, they couldn’t make the jump to lightspeed without being torn apart, and they couldn’t repair the shields without the astromech droids, which were being picked off like bugs on a log.

“Captain, a KX droid has found your daughter,” DeWolf said as she approached. “He’s escorting her to the escape pods.”

“Good,” George breathed. “Is she okay? She’s not hurt?”

“She’s fine,” DeWolf told him. “She’ll _be_ fine. She’s your daughter, after all.”

“That’s little comfort,” George said, managing a smirk. “Distress beacon?”

“Sent out to anyone in the system, but the logs indicate only a small mining operation in the R-16 asteroid belt,” DeWolf said. “They cleared out four months ago, though.”

“Captain!” a voice shouted from behind, and George turned just in time to see the door to the bridge blast inward. He had his sidearm out in seconds, training it toward the doorway as a cloud of smoke slowly billowed inward and dissipated. For a long moment, there was only silence but for the distant sounds of continued fighting throughout the ship, and George was just about to creep forward when a sharp whistle met his ears. A glowing orange arrow shot through the last lingering wisps of smoke, stopping millimeters short of impaling his forehead.

“Lower your weapons,” a heavily-modulated voice spoke. “You’re outmatched.”

George stared down the floating arrow, which hummed with energy as it hovered directly between his eyes. Beyond the weapon, he could see four spherical brown figures roll into the room, unfolding themselves into the hunched, tripedal forms of the iconic destroyer droids. Supposedly, all battle droids had been decommissioned following the dissolution of the Secessionist Movement, though a startling amount of them cropped up on the Black Market, often in the hands of pirates or rebel nationalists. These four looked to have undergone some aftermarket modifications, sporting boosted shields and a few extra shoulder-mounted cannons of unknown function.

“Sir,” DeWolf said in a low voice. “Escape pod jettisoned.”

“I said lower your weapons,” the voice said again, and a humanoid figure strode in behind the droids. At first glance, George thought that a Mandalorian was leading the pirates, albeit one with an ostentatious sense of style; the armor he wore was plated in some manner of reflective metal, and he’d even added an armorweave cape. Upon closer inspection, though, George realized that the pirate had procured a set of Phase I clone trooper armor and made a few major modifications. “Do it. Or your whole crew dies while you watch.”

“Weapons down, everyone,” George said loudly and clearly, lowering his own blaster. DeWolf spared him a look of shock but obeyed, as did everyone in the surrounding crewman seats. George allowed a moment of pride at the fact that every one of them had sprung up with a weapon in hand.

“Smart move,” the pirate spoke, stepping forward until he was only a meter away from George. The arrow slowly floated back, and he caught it in a gloved hand, affixing it to his gauntlet. “Captain George Stacy. I’ve heard of you.”

“You have me at a disadvantage, then,” George said mildly.

“I try to avoid familiarity with Imperial lapdogs,” the pirate growled. “In the interest of diplomacy, though… I’m Captain Phasma.”

“And what business do you have with my ship and my crew, Captain…Phasma?” George asked, trying not to show his amusement. The name was almost as theatrical as his outfit, and to compound the irony of the situation, Captain Phasma was noticeably shorter than him.

“A Cantwell-class Arrestor Cruiser?” Captain Phasma said in his modulated rumble. “I intend to take it as my flagship and build an armada. With the power to trap and disable any ship with ease, I’ll become a name the Outer Rim fears.”

“You might want to pick something besides Phasma, then,” George said quietly, and the gauntlet with the arrow shot up to aim at his nose, the arrow floating threateningly toward him before pausing. Captain Phasma was staring at him, though behind the helmet, George was sure he was listening to something over a private comm channel. DeWolf met his eyes, hers darting between the captain and George, and he gave a subtle shake of his head. The moment they gave even the slightest hint of a threat toward Phasma, her destroyer droids would demonstrate exactly how they’d earned their name.

“Escort the crew to the shuttle and have them taken to the brig on the _Eclector_ ,” Phasma finally spoke to his droids before turning to George. Around them, the lights sprang back on, and though there was no immediate indication, he was sure the shields were back online. With the ship captured, the astromech droids had probably been allowed to work their magic. “I’d like to have a word with the captain.”

Seconds later, the droids had escorted the bridge crew out, and George turned to stare down Captain Phasma.

“You inspire loyalty,” Phasma said. “Commendable.”

“I’m loyal to them in kind,” George said.

“Oh, I know all about you, George Stacy,” Phasma told him. “The unsung hero of the Empire, the watchdog with the sterling record. The one they call when a job is too important to fall through. You could be a Commodore, an Admiral, one of Darth Vader’s most trusted toadies. But you never showed any ambition beyond simple construction security. Why is that?”

George felt a cold creeping sensation at his question.

“I simply had different aspirations,” he said flatly.

“Or…you had obligations,” Phasma said. “Someone you wanted to keep close at hand without endangering, to keep away from the tyranny that you quietly endorsed.”

The tension in the air was palpable. George dared not say anything lest he give away an important bit of information to the pirate captain. It seemed, though, that he was already privy to everything and merely gloating in George’s face.

“So, where have you sent your daughter, George?”

……

Supposedly—a _very_ long time ago—Tatooine had been a beautiful, lush world of vast seas and rich forested landscapes, with the plant life flourishing under the nourishing rays of two suns. Historical accounts were divided on what had brought about the drastic change that had resulted in the dried up, baking-hot ball of sand that was the planet nowadays, but the two popular theories were some sort of super weapon wielded in an ancient intergalactic war or simple over-industrialization resulting in a cataclysmic environmental shift.

In Miles’s mind, either option was an entirely preventable scenario, which he felt spoke volumes about the capacity for intelligent life to show how stupid it could be.

“Miles,” Ganke’s voice broke the silence. “What’s a season?”

Ganke was reading a book, which was unusual only because the medium itself had fallen out of fashion well before either of the two had been born, giving way to datapads capable of holding thousands of works. Here his friend was, though, his already narrow eyes squinting at the stark white page as it gleamed in the sunlight. Lifting his gaze, he turned his round face to Miles with a searching expression.

“A season?” Miles asked. “Like, what they put on meats to flavor it up? Like Mom’s spice rub that you like.”

“That doesn’t make sense, though,” Ganke said. His heavy brows—the only hair on his head—knitting together, he pointed at the page in front of him. “They’re talking about time passing and seasons changing. How do they change?”

“I dunno, what planet was the book written on?” Miles asked. Ganke stuck a finger in the page he was on and flipped to the front.

“Naboo,” he said.

Miles shrugged, and Ganke mirrored the gesture before going back to his story while Miles trained his eyes on the horizon again, trying to pay attention through his boredom. The Dune Sea hadn’t changed, though, still shimmering in the heat, still threatening an agonizing death of dehydration for anyone foolish enough to attempt to traverse it. Miles didn’t see the point in a sentry, not when the Banner Moisture Plantation had just had a pretty impressive wall constructed around its perimeter. Even so, Farmer Banner was paying them, and a trugut was a trugut.

Miles even had to admit to himself that the farmer was _overpaying_ them a bit, considering they already had room and board in his compound, but he had refused to waver on his offer.

“How much longer do we have to be out here?” Ganke asked, and Miles turned a bemused look to him.

“Are you kidding me?” he asked. “I’m the only one doing any watching. You’re just reading your book.”

“Because I know the watching is pointless,” Ganke said. “Banner’s being paranoid as usual.”

“He’s paying us,” Miles reminded his friend. “We owe it to him to do what he asks, even if it seems kinda dumb. Besides, _someone_ keeps complaining about not having enough money to fix up a C-series he found. You could finally get him that new motivator.”

Ganke sighed, slumping and shutting his book before sitting up to shuffle across the hover-skiff the two had perched in, parked on a cliff overlooking the Banner Plantation. Banner had told them exactly where to park, citing his lack of a “decent sentry tower” at the moment. The way he’d worded things, it was definitely a future plan of his, though.

“Alright, fair point,” Ganke finally conceded. “What are we watching for?”

“Well, sand people or thugs or…I dunno, a krayt dragon,” Miles said and Ganke raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes and peered out over the Dune Sea. Of course, the odds of a krayt dragon venturing this close to civilization was rare (fierce as they were, a well-armed militia could down one easily), but if Banner wanted them to be on the lookout for one, then Miles would be! Ganke stared out at the sandy wastes for a long moment, the polarized lenses in the binoculars—which he’d built himself in his workshop—cutting through the glare of the twin suns and blinding sand and enabling him to actually see through the haze of light.

“See anything?” Miles asked, though he was sure he already knew the answer.

Surprisingly, though, he didn’t.

“Woah,” Ganke breathed. “Uh…yeah! Look!”

He stuffed the binoculars into Miles’s hands, and Miles quickly pressed them to his eyes. Ganke steered him and pointed up into the sky where, in the midst of the vast, cloudless, blue expanse, he saw a single smoking trail curling through the sky, unfurling in the wake of something small and round.

“Meteorite?” Ganke asked, and Miles shook his head, twisting the dial on the binoculars to zoom in.

“That’s an escape pod,” he said. “From a ship in orbit. They might need help.”

“And we’re going to help them,” Ganke said. It was less a question and more a statement, though he didn’t sound extremely enthusiastic about the fact.

“Uh, of course we are,” Miles said, already heading toward the control panel in the rear of the skfif. “Whoever’s in that pod is landing in the middle of the Dune Sea. They won’t last half a day on foot.”

“Alright, alright, even I’m not heartless enough to leave someone to die in the Dune Sea,” Ganke said. He settled into one of the passenger seats of the skiff and buckled himself into the harness. “You get to explain to Banner why we ditched watch duty early, though.”

“I will take a hundred percent of the blame,” Miles said, tapping a few buttons and extending the control lever. Taking a hold of it, he edged it forward and sent them down the steep incline of the cliff face before jetting them out over the Dune Sea.

……

The Dune Sea had supposedly once been an actual sea, a vast expanse of water stretching hundreds of kilometers in all directions. The high salt concentration meant that most attempts at farming were impossible, but that didn’t stop Tusken raiders from building ramshackle camps and wandering villages here and there among the rocks and crags. Between the hostile wildlife and utterly unforgiving heat, one could not be expected to survive a jaunt into the Sea, at least on foot. Vehicular travel was a better alternative, though the recommended method of traversing the Dune Sea was to simply _not_ do so.

“If we get eaten by a krayt dragon, I’m blaming you,” Ganke told Miles as they zipped along the sands, their hover-skiff’s quiet humming the only sound besides the empty howl of the wind as it roared quietly through the rocks.

“You said that already,” Miles reminded him as the wind whipped the curly pile of hair atop his head. “Where did it land?”

“Left about thirty degrees,” Ganke said, staring through the binoculars once more. Miles course-corrected with a twitch of the lever, and the skiff banked as it turned toward a valley between two high crags. “Bit more… Okay, dead ahead.”

“Did you hear any radio chatter?” Miles asked.

“Some,” Ganke replied. “A few hours ago. Didn’t think much of it. An Imperial cruiser got into it with some pirates.”

“The Hutt Cartel?”

“Nah, too messy for them to get involved,” Ganke said. “The Hutts and the Empire try to get along for now.”

“Ravagers,” Miles concluded, and Ganke nodded.

“Most likely,” he agreed. “They’ve been getting uppity lately. No one’s sure why.”

“So, this escape pod probably has a pirate or an Imperial soldier in it,” Miles pointed out.

“This was your idea,” Ganke told him. Miles was just considering turning back when a wisp of smoke appeared on the horizon, curling away from a singular metal pod that had embedded itself in the sand. It had gouged a huge trench in its wake, breaking off a few chunks of metal and one of the burners meant to slow its descent.

“It held up pretty well,” Ganke observed as they slowed the skiff to a stop. “They program these things to hit horizontally so the impact doesn’t paste you inside the pod.”

“Gotta be an Empire pod,” Miles said, pointing to a discarded panel in the sand that bore the logo stenciled along the side—a circle with a simple gear-like design inside it. The pair hopped down from the skiff, their feet sinking into loose, windswept sand that probably hadn’t been walked on for months. Miles led the way, climbing onto the pod and searching along the surface for a lever of some kind. Escape pods, per galactic law, had a release lever on the inside and the outside, for the purposes of search and rescue.

“I wonder why it’s just one?” Ganke asked while Miles searched. “If they’d called to abandon ship, the pods should be raining down on us. If just one guy made a run for it, he must have a death wish.”

There it was! Miles found a large red lever just under the rim of the escape pod, taking hold of the scalding metal (good thing he was wearing his bantha-hide gloves) and yanking it.

_KSSSSSHHH! Whump!_

A hiss of pressurized air sent him reeling back before the lid of the escape pod exploded away, arcing through the air and landing with enough weight that it sank into the sand several millimeters. Miles and Ganke both crawled up and peered down into the dark interior.

“Oh, no,” Miles muttered.

“Not…what I expected at all,” Ganke added.

Below them, a girl was strapped into one of the seats along the escape pod, but she was limp where she sat, her head lolling to one side. A single trickle of blood was coming from her nose, a bright streak of crimson on her pale skin. Next to her, a droid Miles couldn’t identify was crumpled against the side of the pod.

“Is there a medi-kit on the skiff?” Miles asked, and Ganke simply leapt back down to the sand, hurrying toward their vehicle. Miles picked his way carefully into the stuffy confines of the pod, dropping to a landing in front of the girl. Holding a hand in front of her parted lips, he felt a soft puff of breath against his fingers. She was breathing at least. It was concerning that she was still unconscious, though; she could suffer some kind of brain damage if she was allowed to stay like this.

“Got it!” Ganke called from above, and Miles looked up just in time to see him dropping the medi-kit down. Catching the plasteel case, he set it down and opened it up, seeing Ganke’s boots hit the metal grating on the floor of the pod. “Wow. She’s pretty.”

“That droid’s not gonna power on and kill us anytime soon, is it?” Miles asked as he withdrew the medisensor and powered it on. While a green laser grid blinked and assessed the damage to the girl, Ganke poked and prodded at the droid.

“I’ve never seen a droid like this,” he said. “Man, this is some sophisticated tech. Must be some new model the Empire’s using, or it’s only on the important ships.”

The medisensor’s grid blinked blue, showing a few splotches of red along its readout. Some bumps and bruises, but nothing broken. Most importantly, there was minimal head trauma, though she’d probably have a real headache once the strain caught up with her. Kneeling, Miles got out a stimpak and gave it a quick shake.

“Which side of the neck?” he asked Ganke.

“Left,” Ganke said, and Miles raised the applicator. “No, _their_ left. Your right.”

Leaning over the girl, Miles couldn’t help but be taken aback by how _pretty_ she was. Where the girls around Great Chott were dark and weathered by the suns and sands—and beautiful in their own right—she was pale and reminiscent of a porcelain doll. Miles wondered if she was a princess, ushered off the ship and away from the conflict to be recovered later when it was safe.

“You gonna stare at her or – “

Miles shook himself and gently pressed the stimpack into the girl’s neck—her pallor only stood out even more starkly against the darkness of his own skin. A quiet snapping hiss sounded, and her body gave a gentle twitch before her eyes fluttered open. Miles’s gaze was met with frosty blue, much too chilly for a planet like this. Blearily, she blinked, her pupils dilating until Miles saw recognition and cognizance in her expression. She was awake.

“You’re safe,” was the first thing Miles said when he saw her begin to tense up and panic. “I’m Miles. That’s Ganke. We found your escape pod.”

“Where am I?” the girl spoke, her voice light and delicate, if a little hoarse from her ordeal. “Is this Tatooine?”

“Yep,” Miles said. “I should also point out that we’re right in the middle of the Dune Sea, so it’s not the safest place.”

At those words, she nodded and moved her fingers to the buckles and harnesses keeping her in her seat. Miles stepped back so she could stand, though he hurriedly moved to steady her as she swayed a bit on her feet.

“Careful,” he said. “You got beat up pretty good in the landing. I stuck you with a stimpak, but you still won’t be feeling good for a while.”

“Yeah, I feel…awful,” she said, looking around the small escape pod and gasping when she saw the droid. “Kaysix… Oh, no….”

“Don’t worry,” Miles said with a glance over at Ganke. “Ganke’s really good with fixing stuff, right?”

“Well…I am,” Ganke said. “Seriously, I’m not even bragging, just stating facts. I’m really good. But…is it really a good idea? As soon as we activate him, he’d probably find some way to contact the Empire…”

“Oh…right,” Miles winced, looking back to the blonde girl. Was it even safe for them to bring her with them? What if an Imperial search party was already combing the Dune Sea, looking for her? Or the Ravagers? It was straining the edges of healthy paranoia, but what if _she_ was the one they were after?

“What…?” the girl asked, her eyes darting between them nervously. There was a weariness to her; Miles could hear it in her voice. Obviously, she’d been through a lot, and just as obviously, she didn’t need their suspicions.

She needed their help.

“C’mon,” Miles said, gesturing to the top of the pod. “We have a skiff. We’ll take you to safety. Ganke, get the winch, and we’ll load up the droid.”

“Miles…”

“Ganke, look at her,” Miles said in a low voice. “The droid probably means a lot to her.”

“Kaysix saved my life,” she told them meekly. “I…I know people in the Outer Rim don’t really…like the Empire, but…”

She looked toward Ganke with a small pout to her lips, her icy blue eyes wide and contrite, and Miles could see his friend’s willpower shatter to pieces.

“That is not fair,” he said, pointing a stern finger toward the girl. “I’ll get the winch.”

Grumbling to himself, he climbed up the ladder toward the top of the pod, and Miles gestured at it, indicating she should go next.

“Oh, um…” the girl nodded a thanks and headed up the ladder. Miles waited until she’d made it out before going after her, lest she take a tumble in her state and land on him. “Oh! Wow, I knew it’d be hot, but…wow!”

“Yeah, two suns’ll do that,” Miles said as he climbed out after her. “We can get you some clothes that breathe better once we get back home.”

A hot breeze picked up, sending her hair whipping around her face as she looked around their surroundings.

“I can see why it’s called a Dune Sea,” she said. “What were you two doing all the way out here?”

“Rescuing you,” Ganke said as he climbed up the side of the pod with the winch cable trailing behind him. The girl watched him for a few seconds before turning to Miles.

“You came all the way out here just to save me?” she asked.

“Well…to be fair, we didn’t really know _who_ we were saving,” Miles shrugged. “I mean, we still would’ve come out here if we’d known. That’s not what I mean. I just mean…you could’ve been anyone, you know? I don’t think I even know your name.”

“Gwen,” she said with a little smile. “You said you’re Miles and…Ganke?”

“It’s a Panathan name,” Ganke told her, emerging from within the pod. “Miles, help me with the winch?”

Miles led Gwen over to the skiff, where Ganke had already deactivated the hover array on the bottom, allowing them to use the full weight of the vehicle as a counterweight for the winch. Ganke, perched on top of the pod, peered inside and motioned to Miles.

“Alright, let ‘er rip,” he said.

Miles pressed a button on the winch’s control panel, and the motor gave a noisy rattle before beginning to reel in the line.

“Are you both from Panatha?” Gwen asked while the motor rumbled along, and Miles shook his head.

“I was born on Tatooine,” he said. “Ganke and his family showed up one day when I was four, and we’ve been best buds ever since.”

“Aw,” Gwen smiled in a way that made Miles’s heart skip. “That’s cute.”

“So,” Miles asked after a couple of seconds’ silence in which they watched Gwen’s droid slowly emerge from the top of the pod and clatter down into the sand, “I hate to sound like some sleazy spacer in a cantina, but…what’s a girl like you even _doing_ out here in the Outer Rim, in an Imperial escape pod? You look a bit young for the military.”

“Also, your hair is in no way regulation length,” Ganke said as he ambled along behind the droid, which was dragging up sand and rocks along its trip to the skiff. Gwen smirked and flipped her hair back over her shoulders. It caught the sun and glimmered like gold, distracting Miles long enough that the droid nearly swept his feet out from under him.

This girl was sure to be trouble.

“My…dad is the captain of an arrestor cruiser,” she said, her grin fading as fast as it had bloomed. “We were boarded by pirates and…he had me abandon ship. I have no idea if he’s okay.”

“…Oh,” Ganke said. “What were you doing on the ship, though? I mean…kind of a dangerous place for a girl.”

“Dad made sure to only pick the duty assignments he’d be allowed to bring family along on,” she said. “Security at construction sites, cleanup of ship-to-ship collisions…. It kept him busy, though. Got him a reputation.”

“Huh,” Miles said with a look at Ganke, who shrugged.

“Weird to think of the Empire having actual normal people,” he said.

Gwen didn’t seem to have anything to say to that, shrugging with a sheepish smile on her face. Miles smacked Ganke on the arm, prompting a small yelp from his friend.

“What!?”

“You’re making her feel bad!” Miles said.

“Well…it’s not like I said she _wasn’t_ normal, just…”

“It’s okay,” Gwen finally said, climbing onto the skiff and staring at the escape pod. From her angle, she had a perfect view of the Imperial insignia etched into the side. “I’ve just…never been on a world that wasn’t part of the Empire. I don’t hear much about _why_ people don’t like them, but I know it has its dissenters.”

As her droid dragged noisily onto the skiff, Miles climbed in next to her, with Ganke unfastening the winch and joining them seconds later.

“We don’t hear much either,” Miles said as he started the engine, which whirred to life loudly in the quiet of the Sea. The skiff slowly lifted off, bobbing a bit before steadying over the sand. “Out here, the Empire doesn’t really mean much more than a patrol every once in a while, one gangster or Hutt paying off a Moff to send some trouble to another. Banner, our boss, he says things in the Tatoo System barely even changed when the Republic became the Empire. ‘Just a big ball of sand no one wants to bother with,’ he says.”

They took off across the sands, Gwen tipping in her seat before Ganke reached out and steadied her.

“Every few weeks, we’ll hear about someone going to join the Rebellion, but that’s about it,” he said.

“What’s… I mean, what do _you_ guys know about the Rebellion?” Gwen asked after a pause.

“Not much more than they’re trying to overthrow the Empire,” Miles said.

“The official line is that the Empire is corrupt, brutal, totalitarian, and built on the backs of the overworked and undercompensated lower-class while the rich elite actually hold all the leadership positions in the military and government,” Ganke said, looking over to see the other two staring at him. “I’ve seen some pamphlets.”

They fell silent after that, Gwen looking lost in thought. Miles was sure there was some culture shock at play; after spending her life in a bubble listening to the Imperial side of things, being thrust into a world where the Empire was a corrupt nuisance at best and a hated regime at worst had to be jarring.

……

By the time they made it back to the Banner Plantation, the suns were setting, painting the sky a bright gold that darkened rapidly to a mixture of deep purple and vibrant pink. The temperature dropped considerably as they went—the dry air was unable to trap any amount of the heat left by the suns—and Miles and Ganke each produced a poncho, pulling them over their lightweight traveling clothes.

“Are you cold?” Miles asked Gwen, who shook her head.

“I spend a lot of time in space,” she said. “I don’t mind a chill.”

“Uh-oh,” Ganke said, looking ahead toward the Banner Plantation’s wall. They slowed the skiff to a stop at the entrance to the plantation, and standing next to the metal doors was Banner himself, his arms folded and a stern look on his face.

Farmer Banner (if he had a first name, no one knew it) was a powerful man, tall and strong with ruddy, weathered skin that had once been fair but was now a testament to what binary suns could do to the wrong complexion. Still, where Tatooine had a way of wearing down most, Farmer Banner had been hardened, and his determination and sheer willpower was reflected in the fact that he’d built one of the most successful moisture farming operations in Great Chott salt flat. His green eyes seemed to glimmer in the semidarkness as he studied them, one hand coming up to comb through his burly salt-and-pepper beard. He kept his hair shorn short, but his beard was allowed to grow out of control.

Miles didn’t know how he did it; granted, he wasn’t able to grow a beard of his own just yet, but just imagining that much hair right on his face…yeesh.

“Heya,” Ganke said. “Look what we found.”

Farmer Banner took in the sight of Gwen, the KX droid, and the whole group on the skiff.

“Has anyone else seen her?” he finally asked.

“No, sir,” Ganke said.

“Did you turn the droid on?”

“No, sir,” Miles answered.

“…Droid in the workshop, you two are on filters,” the farmer said with a stern finger at the two boys. “All of them cleaned or changed tonight. And don’t just clean all of them. If they need changed – “

“But – “

“ – you change them!”

“We’ve been out in the – “

“That is not my fault,” Banner said.

“She needed our help!” Miles protested. “Her pod landed in the Dune Sea. She could have died!”

“Just be glad I don’t have you cleaning the sensors on the vaporators,” Banner told them. “Filters. Tonight. Then you can wash up and get dinner. Your mom’s making bantha stew. Make sure you plug the skiff in to charge, too.”

“Yes, sir,” Miles grumbled. Banner turned his attention to Gwen, who had watched this whole exchange silently.

“You, come with me,” he said.

……

The Banner Moisture Plantation was a massive complex, and Gwen noticed a number of similarities to the vineyards and orchards back home. Directly inside the gate was a cluster of low buildings, no doubt housing the machinery and tools necessary to maintain the equipment used to tend the crops (or vaporators in this case). There was also a common house where workers probably whiled away their off hours—it was the only building that seemed to be occupied at the moment, a cozy light spilling out onto the sand. Off in the distance, rows upon rows of the vaporators themselves were silhouetted in the last light of the setting suns. How strange that such a simple thing as water was regarded as a precious commodity on certain worlds, precious enough to farm with such specialized equipment protected by a high sandstone wall. It was a testament to the lengths people would go to in order to stay on the fringes of society that this inhospitable planet was as populated as it was.

Farmer Banner (evidently, that was all he was to anyone, no first name given) led Gwen through what amounted to a small courtyard just inside the gate. A few lamps were lit against the encroaching night, blue-white light cast in uniform circles and lighting deep, angular shadows in the folds of Banner’s poncho. Past a few warehouses and the common house (oh, whatever bantha stew was, it smelled _so good_!), she was taken to what looked like a sandstone igloo, though the top of the dome only came to about her waist. How were they supposed to…?

Banner climbed down a staircase that descended into the ground, indicating there was more to the structure under the earth. Well, it made sense that a desert people would build their homes underground to stay cooler. Gwen followed him, the narrow stairs opening up to a workshop that was actually probably quite large but felt cramped from how many shelves and devices had been stuffed inside. Banner was a bit of a techie, it seemed.

“Sit,” he said, gesturing at a rusty old chair near a workbench. Gwen hurried over and sat, feeling like she’d been pulled to the principal’s office on her first day at a new school. The workbench was scattered with various parts and circuits that she couldn’t even begin to guess the function of, and she had to resist the urge to poke at a dark amber-colored crystal not unlike the ones found in some blasters. Farmer Banner rolled a stool over, plunking down on it and leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and study Gwen. His green eyes were piercing, flitting over her with infinitesimal movements that made her feel like another machine, one that he’d found and couldn’t figure out.

Just when Gwen was about to speak into the pregnant silence, Banner went first.

“Did they run a medisensor on you?” he asked, pointing at her neck. “I see they stimpacked you. They better replace that in the medi-kit.”

“Um…yeah?” Gwen asked. “I think so. Miles was holding a medisensor when I woke up, so…”

“How do you feel?” he asked, taking out a light and shining it into her eyes. Gwen blinked and saw spots for a moment. “Pupillary response is normal. Any dizziness? Headaches? Confusion?”

“I’m a little confused right now,” Gwen told him. “I thought I’d be getting yelled at.”

“You’re not in trouble,” Banner said with a shake of his head. “Not with me, at least. The problem is, you’re gonna _bring_ trouble, maybe right to our door.”

“Oh,” Gwen noised as he spun his stool around and rolled half a meter back for a moment. Rummaging around in a cabinet, he pushed himself back to face Gwen, popping the top on a small metal canister and passing her two pills.

“Painkillers,” he said. “Take one with dinner, one before bed. The less glamorous side of escape pod travel is the muscle aches the landing leaves you with, especially those Imperial ones.”

“Um…thank you,” Gwen said. This man was a puzzle; he seemed to be angry with Gwen but equally concerned for her wellbeing. “I’m sorry for…bringing trouble. I can explain, if anyone from the Empire shows up, tell them you were just helping me.”

“I appreciate the sentiment,” Banner said, “but the Empire’s never needed an excuse to harass a civilian or two. You’re, what…captain’s daughter? Sister?”

“Daughter,” Gwen admitted, and Banner nodded with a knowing look.

“You see the troops on best behavior,” he said. “Most of them, they probably even like you, don’t mind playing nice since you’re nice right back. You seem like a sweet kid, well-mannered, respectful.”

“That’s…mostly accurate.”

“Stormtroopers on the ground, away from the commanding officers and troop movements and marching orders, they’re thugs,” Banner went on. “Their job is to keep the people beaten, bring them to heel. If one guy mouths of and gets stomped into the street, the next guy keeps his head down and doesn’t make a fuss.”

“But…” Gwen trailed off, shaking her head. She wanted to insist that it couldn’t be that way, that all of the troopers she’d ever spoken to were lovely and friendly and would never treat a civilian unfairly. But did she really know that? Away from Dad, from the commanders and admirals—the places Gwen never was—would they really change tunes so drastically? She’d watched Dad go from Doting Father to Ship’s Captain with alarming abruptness; was it such a stretch to believe a darker turn was possible?

“If we’re lucky, we won’t even need to worry about any visits,” Banner said. “You never activated the pod’s distress beacon, so they’ll have to find it through aerial scans. And the hover-skiff didn’t leave a trail. That gives us some time to figure out what to do with you.”

“Okay,” Gwen said, hating how thick her voice sounded when she spoke. All this talk of the Empire and hearing people speak of them with such open contempt… Miles, Ganke, even Banner, all of them seemed like perfectly reasonable, rational people who wouldn’t arbitrarily decide they hated their galactic government one day. Gwen wasn’t about to join the Rebellion based on what they’d said, but there had to be some real grounds to at least some of their claims. She’d always known she’d grown up in a bubble, watching the world from within. Was the bubble so warped, twisting everything she saw and heard in such a drastic way that her impression of the outside world could be this misinformed?

Banner seemed to sense her distress, passing her a box of tissues just in time for her eyes to start swimming, and when she blinked again, tears rolled freely down her cheeks. Snagging one up, she dabbed at her eyes, shaking her head.

“Sorry,” she choked out. “It’s just…been a lot…”

“You’re worried about your dad,” Banner said. “About everyone on the ship.”

“The more I hear about…everyone badmouthing the Empire, I just…I wanna talk to him, to…hear his side of things,” Gwen said. “And then I remember that the last time I saw him was…days ago. I don’t even know if he’s…okay…”

“I don’t think he’d want you to spend all your time worrying about him when you’re not exactly out of the woods yet, either,” Banner told her. “You can’t do anything to help him right now, but you can keep yourself going, for him.”

His voice was strangely soothing as he spoke, and his entire being radiated a calm authority that at least slowed her spiraling thoughts and allowed her to a get a hold of herself. What could she do? What _should_ she do?

Find the overlap.

“I think I need a shower, a meal, and a bed,” she said, finally letting a bit of tiredness creep into her voice. “If…that’s okay.”

“Miles would never forgive me if I cut you loose,” Banner said with a wry smile, his first one since Gwen had met him. “I’ll show you where you can stay tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll work out a plan of action.”

……

Alderaan was a nice enough planet to look at, it was true. Their talents, though, were wasted on the arts, on pursuits of creativity and expression. Set a man in front of an easel or a block of marble, he’d certainly make something that was nice to look at, once. Then it was done; its usefulness was served. But with a workshop, some tools, and raw ingenuity, that same man could invent something that would change lives, _save_ them. Art was a dead end, a hobby born from stagnation. Left idle, the people of the galaxy had gotten comfortable, had wandered. They were so like children, frittering their days away until Father got home.

Well, here he was….

“JARVIS, how long until the _Sentinel_ arrives?” Vader asked.

“ _My Lord, I’m afraid there’s been a complication._ ”

“You know how I feel about complications. Ross?”

“ _The Grand Moff is on his way_ ,” JARVIS spoke, his cool synthetic tones coming from the speakers arrayed around his private dining area. Utilitarian, as Vader loved everything, the dining room was simple black tile floors with stark white walls. Shelves and cabinets set in the walls held every utensil and place setting he needed to host company, and the table was large enough to seat twelve, should he care to spin some strategy over his meals.

He rarely did, but it was nice to know the option was there.

“ _Grand Moff Ross has arrived_ ,” JARVIS said minutes later, followed by the hiss of a sliding door opening behind Vader. The new arrival waited until it had shut behind him before speaking.

“Lord Vader,” he rumbled. “We have a problem.”

Vader turned, idly reaching up to smooth down a stray hair that had been poking up from his mustache and into his peripheral vision. A commanding presence was essential in his line of work, and that included a well-groomed appearance. Vader kept his hair neatly-trimmed, and his mustache and beard were precisely-shaped. When one gave an air of control over even the minutiae of his appearance, people took note of it—even if only subconsciously—and respected such things.

Clearly, the Grand Moff was of the same mind. His mustache was a burly thing but kept just within Imperial regulations, and his neatly-combed hair was strikingly gray to match.

“Problems, complications,” Vader shook his head. “I wanted two things before the end of the day, I wanted to test my laser – “ he gestured out the window to the massive space station hovering ominously near Alderaan, looking like a small moon – “and I wanted the girl. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.”

“The _Sentinel_ was taken by pirates a few hours ago,” Ross told him, sparing the laser a glance before meeting Vader's eyes once more. “One of the Ravager factions, we believe.”

“And where is it now?” Vader asked. “It’s one of ours, we can track it, right?”

“They jumped to hyperspace an hour before our ships made it into the system,” Ross said. “That was two hours ago. They haven’t come out yet, but judging by their course, we have them arriving at Nar Shaddaa.”

“Ship’s not important,” Vader said with a wave of his hand. “The girl. Do they have her?”

“She and a KX droid managed to get an escape pod to the surface of…Tatooine,” Ross said, consulting his holopad briefly. “Should I set a course?”

“No,” Vader said. “Not just yet. JARVIS, do we have troops in the area?”

“ _The 212 th Attack Battalion is still stationed on Geonosis_,” JARVIS replied. “ _Commander Cody is leading the suppression efforts. Shall I contact him?_ ”

“Have him send a small squad, nothing that’ll spook anyone,” Vader said. “We wanna look like we’re making a token effort to rescue a civilian from hostile territory. Good for the news vids. Start going after her too hard, people will wonder what’s so special about her and go after her as well.”

“ _At once, My Lord_ ,” JARVIS said crisply.

“And what about the ship?” Ross asked—clearly, he wouldn’t be swayed from this issue, especially by Vader's pet projects.

“We wait for it to come out of hyperspace,” Vader said. “And then we obliterate it.”

“Destroy one of our own ships?” Ross spluttered.

“It’s a message,” Vader said, “for anyone that would dare steal an Imperial ship in the future. I’d rather see it a floating wreck than in the hands of pirates or rebels.”

The Grand Moff looked thoughtful for a long moment before allowing a begrudging nod.

“Then I suppose I’ll take my leave.”

“You should stay and watch the show,” Vader said, turning back to the window as glowing purple lights sprang to life along the surface of his space station. “JARVIS? The laser? The show?”

“ _Power levels are fluctuating,_ ” JARVIS said. “ _The power source would appear to be extremely unstable. Numerous breaches in hull integrity reported._ ”

“I want external backups for all the readouts,” Vader said. “If that thing goes, and it probably will, I’d like to know why.”

“ _Of course, My Lord_ ,” JARVIS said. “ _Ninety-three percent power and rising._ ”

“That thing actually works?” Ross asked, his gruff expression showing uncharacteristic awe as he stared out the window.

“I’ve always been of the opinion that peace is holding a bigger stick than everyone else,” Vader said. As he watched, a small section of the space station crumbled away, floating off into the darkness of space illuminated by a flickering purple light. “This, Grand Moff, is the mother of all sticks.”

“It’s falling apart,” Ross observed.

“Well, we knew the test fire would have some hiccups,” Vader said. “But a show of force is a show of force. The loss of Imperial manpower will be negligible at best, don’t worry.”

“And the people of Alderaan?”

“ _One hundred percent power, My Lord_.”

“Fire at will,” Vader ordered, and a blinding beam of purple light shot from the laser, illuminating the dining room for a moment. Cracks of glowing purple splintered and wove along the surface of the station, more and more sections of the outer hull breaking away to reveal scaffolding and the skeleton of the structure.

“By the stars…” Ross muttered as a wave of purple energy swept over the surface of the planet, replacing shades of verdant green and golden yellow—a tapestry of nature—with uniform brown. The wash of color swept across the entire surface like fire on a field, spreading, consuming, and leaving bleak, stark nothingness behind.

It was so beautiful…

“Do you know much of the Alderaanian people, Grand Moff?” Vader asked. “Artists and philosophers, celebrities and media personalities, all of them rich and self-important. They spend the days they’re not luxuriating in their wealth dictating how the average galactic citizen should live their lives grateful for what they have while they themselves have so much more. The few that ever amount to anything worthwhile do so in the name of the Rebellion, funding their cause, shielding their members, and influencing the senate in ways detrimental to the good of the Empire…until today. JARVIS?”

“ _Orbital scans of Alderaan indicate no signs of life whatsoever, down to the bacterial level, My Lord_.”

“Compile all the data we got from the test fire,” Vader went on. “In the future, it might be better for our weapon _not_ to break into pieces when we use it.”

“ _An astute observation, My Lord_ ,” JARVIS spoke dryly. “ _Shall I construct a holo-model in the workshop?_ ”

“I’ll be right down,” Vader said, glancing over at the Grand Moff. There was an expression on his face somewhere between utter disbelief and…elation. “Grand Moff, anything to add?”

“Nothing,” Ross said after a brief pause. “Carry on, Lord Vader.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Why would anyone actually choose to live on a planet that’s all desert?” Wilson asked, standing with his hands on his hips while staring out over the vast Dune Sea. His white desert trooper armor, like all of theirs, was smudged and coated with sand, though it gleamed in the light of Tatooine’s double moons.

“Because either they _have_ no choice, or they’re rich enough that it doesn’t matter where they live,” Sergeant Appo told him. “This is Hutt space. They have their palaces and pleasure barges and more filthy money than they know what to do with.”

“My kind of people,” Wilson chuckled, cutting off when Cody turned a look toward him. Even through the stormtrooper helmet, Commander Cody was somehow still able to convey a perfect blend of admonishment and warning, and it was a mark of the reputation he held among the 212th that the normally verbose Wilson knew better than to push his luck. Satisfied with his wordless rebuke, Cody turned back to Dobalina, a newer recruit whom Cody had taken a liking to despite his general disdain for the Empire’s new policy of recruiting from the civilian pool.

Give him a battalion of tank-grown clone troopers like the good old days, and they’d have this whole rebellion quashed in a month.

“Dobalina, what do you see?” Below and a couple of clicks away, a cluster of buildings sat behind a high sandstone wall, and inside the compound awaited their target. Cody didn’t know much, only that she was a person of interest to Darth Vader himself, and Lord Vader’s affairs were his own. He’d been in this army long enough to know that getting chummy with a Sith was nothing more than a death wish.

“Pretty standard moisture-farming operation,” Dobalina said, tapping a few of the settings on the visor he’d folded down over his helmet’s eyepieces. A soft whir sounded as he zoomed in, his lenses’ night vision causing his eyes to glow a ghostly green. “Few warehouses, farming droids can be a hassle.”

“We can handle a few rusty clankers,” Appo said, sounding almost affronted. Cody smiled to himself; Appo, like him, was a relic of the old days, when the Imperial Army was still known as the Grand Army of the Republic and manned almost exclusively by clone troopers. These days, the 212th Legion was the only military force in the galaxy that boasted the benefit of clones among its ranks, simply because it was Darth Vader’s personal force and he had requisitioned every last clone for himself.

New additions, like Wilson and Dobalina, were supposedly the most promising from other battalions, but Cody had yet to be truly impressed by any of them.

“They farm…moisture?” Wilson asked.

“Water vapor,” Dobalina explained. “They condense it right out of the air and collect it. They can sell it for good money out here, or they can use it in an underground hydroponic garden. Looks like this Banner guy does a bit of – “

“Banner?” Cody cut him off sharply.

“Banner or Benner,” Dobalina shrugged. “That’s what it looked like the kid said to him.”

“Lip-reading,” Appo observed.

“Is Banner still in view?” Cody asked, moving to join Dobalina while withdrawing a pair of binoculars.

“Three o’clock, by that smaller warehouse,” Dobalina said. Peering down at the farm, Cody found him in seconds. Leaning against a wall and chatting with an unidentified woman, a face the clone hadn’t seen in almost twenty years was lit up in the night vision of his binoculars.

“Well, how about that?” he breathed. “We have a Code 66.”

……

This ship was far too noisy.

George wasn’t sure what part of Corellia the _Eclector_ had been built on, or even if that part of Corellia still existed—it was such an old thing that the nation that had produced it could by now have been swallowed up by the Empire’s reign. Simply from listening to the constant chorus of noises and rumbles it produced, he knew that the ventral stabilizers were firing sporadically, likely due to a faulty fuse connection from a poorly rigged aftermarket power core. That very same power core was also all wrong for the ship, intended probably for a much larger _Baleen_ -class bulk freighter than a comparatively smaller barge such as this. Without a properly rated regulator, the occasional power surge sent the lights flickering or activated one of the most thunderous ventilation systems he’d ever heard.

Underneath it all, though, there was a familiar keening whine, inaudible to those that didn’t spend every waking and sleeping moment (aside from a few planetside jaunts) aboard a cruiser with a Class 2 hyperdrive. George had once been told that the sound was the relativistic shields dragging against the flow of spacetime itself, protecting the inhabitants of the ship from a time-dilation mishap.

Whatever the case, George knew from the steadily declining pitch of the noise that they would be coming out of hyperspace within the hour. Almost immediately, the _Sentinel_ ’s tracking device (the _actual_ device and not the decoy that the pirates had found) would alert the Empire of their location, and they would be made into an example of what happened when Imperial ships were captured. The best George could hope for in that situation was a posthumous commendation if the admiralty were particularly pleased with any of the footage they found on the black box among the wreckage of his once proud ship.

And Gwen would be orphaned, left at the mercy of an unforgiving galaxy.

That thought, more than any other, spurred him into action. Overhead, the lights grew brighter before flickering, and he counted the seconds.

_One…two…three…_

When he reached seventeen, he turned and made his way toward his overhead light, pulling the chain to switch it off before yanking away the cover and ripping out the socket where the bulb was screwed in. Inside, he could just make out the exposed wire through the dim blue glow of hyperspace outside his porthole. It hung down only a few scant millimeters, which was not ideal, but he was prepared.

Shucking his overshirt and leaving a standard plain white T-shirt, he cradled his right arm against his body, reaching with his left to press into the joint of his elbow. With a quiet click, the skin on his right arm seemed to go slack and hang off his limb like a sleeve. Great strides had been made with synthskin over the past decades, to the point that the replacement of a lost limb with a prosthetic could be camouflaged completely by an able enough cyberneticist.

Not many people were even aware that George had lost his right arm during a skirmish with a weapons dealer over Nar Shaddaa, a besalisk who had been selling bootleg lightsabers after obtaining a genuine article and reverse-engineering the weapons.

The guts of his cybernetic arm now exposed, George set to work, first unspooling a length of wire and using a small set of wire-cutters produced from inside an empty cavity in the arm to cut it. All cybernetic replacements for military personnel were supplied by Stark Industries out of Corellia, and they were top-of-the-line, boasting a spread of tools necessary for basic repairs housed right inside the limb itself. Soldiers didn’t always have a full workbench to work with while out on the field, so this was a boon to many.

George was likely not using the toolkit for its intended purpose at the moment, but he had a feeling they would appreciate his creativity.

_Forty-six…forty-seven…forty-eight…_

He connected the wire to the exposed bit hanging from the light fixture, hurrying over to the door and letting the other end fall to the floor for a moment. Now came the moment he was dreading, as this escape attempt was going to cost him the use of his dominant hand. Flipping a switch inside the mechanisms of his arm, he felt an unpleasant tingling as he lost all sensation below the elbow. He’d never opted for synthflesh—which would have traded a bit of structural integrity and a few features for full tactile sensation—but he still found himself missing even the numb functionality of a working right arm.

Still, he thought of Gwen.

Clasping the fingers of his left hand around a glowing blue cube within his arm, he tugged it out, unhooking it from the cord connecting it to the circuits and wires within. Cybernetic limbs were still electronics, and electronics required batteries to function. The Stark Industries pulse battery was the latest in cybernetic power sources, able to last years without needing to be replaced or recharged. It was also, under a specific and extremely unlikely set of circumstances, volatile enough to explode in a brilliant ball of fire.

George was about to recreate those extremely unlikely circumstances.

Every ninety-two seconds, like clockwork, a brief power surge would occur, and the voltage being supplied to the light increased by a considerable amount based on how bright the thing got. Outside, the lone pirate guarding his cell block wasn’t due to pass by his door for another four minutes, and that was if he _didn’t_ get caught up chatting with a newer female recruit, a young Krylorian that George had caught a glimpse of while being shoved in here.

_Eighty-seven…eighty-eight…eighty-nine…._

The doors on the ship were the basic lock-and-key sort, without even a control panel to attempt to bypass. Given that George’s “cell” had most likely been some sort of storage bay, it wasn’t surprising, though it made things a lot easier for him. Splicing the wire from the light into the battery, he wedged it into the space between the door’s handle and the jamb, scuttling back toward the light in the ceiling. Reaching up with his left hand, he gripped the pull-switch.

_Niney-one…ninety-two –_

_Click. Zzzzzt-KSHOOM!_

The power surge meant for his light shot directly into the pulse battery, which was designed for a slow transfer of energy, both out and in. The power source infamously took weeks to recharge due to the energy transfer constraints, but they had an impressive shelf life as a result. There were also no less than seventeen warnings in the user manual to never, under any circumstances, attempt to increase the charging rate, or catastrophic results may occur.

George got a firsthand look at these results, as rather than blowing the lock on his door, the whole thing was blasted off its hinges. He wasted no time in charging forward, blinking against the acrid smoke but hurrying out into the corridor outside his cell. Under his feet, the floor was a simple metal grate—meant to be easily pulled up to get at the wires and tubes beneath it—and the walls were unpainted gray metal, minimalist and functional.

“Hey!” a voice shouted down the hall. His guard must not have gotten caught up with the Krylorian this time. Stalking toward him, George saw a boy fresh into adulthood, with a scraggly beard and a lanky body in dire need of some exercise. His voice was high and reedy as he shouted at George. “Hey, what the – “

George caught him across the face with his arm (the thing was still heavy and made of metal, after all), sending him reeling as he reached for a blaster pistol at his side. Before he could even raise it, George had his hand up, glad he’d been at least curling his fingers into an approximation of a fist when he’d powered his arm off. Cocking his elbow back, he punched once, twice before sweeping the kid’s feet out from under him with a kick and sending him flat to his back.

“Stay down, son,” he said to the dazed would-be pirate, scooping up the kid’s blaster and hurrying along the hallway. She had to be close by…. “DeWolff!”

“George!” her voice came from down the corridor. “In here!”

George rushed toward the sound, a steady thump telling him that DeWolff was hammering a fist against a particular door. Slowing to a stop, he held the blaster up toward the lock.

“Stand back!” he called to her, giving her a two-count before firing the pistol. A superheated plasma bolt melted the lock into molten slag, and George hooked the dead fingers of his right hand on the door to pull it open. On the other side, DeWolff was waiting with a stony expression. George tossed her the pistol, and she caught it without even breaking eye contact.

“Most girls get jewelry,” she said.

“I’d never be so crass,” George smirked. “Take point. We’re leaving.”

DeWolff hurried past him, turning the blaster over in her hands as she did and scoffing.

“Must’ve gotten this one out of the lost and found,” she said.

“Captain!” another voice called down the corridor, muffled by one of the doors. “Captain Stacy!”

The pair made their way toward the voice, DeWolff taking the lead while George watched the rear. It would be foolishly optimistic to assume that no one had noticed their escape attempt; rather, the ship was likely so huge that reinforcements were taking a while in arriving. The kid that George had subdued earlier was gone—having probably crawled off somewhere to lick his wounds—and there were no other pirates in sight, for the moment.

That didn’t mean their luck would hold; they would need to proceed cautiously and not let a small couple of successes lure them into lowering their guard.

“Ensign Burke, Captain,” DeWolff said when they’d reached the cell next to hers. “Step back, Burke! We’re shooting the lock!”

She repeated the process George had used to unlock her cell, and George stepped forward to pull the door open once more. Inside, a dark-skinned young man broke into a smile when he saw the pair. Behind him stood a pale, shaven-headed man in his thirties and a woman about DeWolff’s age with mousy brown hair pulled into a crisp bun.

“We busting out?” Burke asked.

“We’ll certainly try,” George said, glancing at the other two and recognizing the male. “Ensign Pascal. And…”

“Warrant Officer Morgan,” the woman said. “I was…on my way to report the status of the shield generators to the bridge crew when I got taken.”

“We’re all that’s down here, far as I know,” Burke said. “Everyone else either didn’t make it or…”

“Joined up with the pirates,” DeWolff muttered. “Filthy turncoats.”

“Don’t worry about them,” George said. “The time will come for them to face the consequences of their actions. Right now, we’re neck deep in hostile territory. We need to find our way to the hangar, secure a ship with a hyperdrive, and be ready to put some distance between us and this ship because once it come out of hyperspace it’ll be blown to kingdom come.”

“All due respect, Captain, that’s a tall order,” Burke said as they made their way back out into the corridor. “There are dozens of these guys, and they have a small army of droids, to boot. The good ones, the ones the Seps used during the war.”

“Well, we’ll just have to – “

“Stop!” a voice shouted down the hall, and George was pulled by his cybernetic arm as DeWolff stepped past him and raised the blaster pistol, firing it squarely into the chest of an Achernonian, who had apparently raised two of his own. A sizzling hole appeared below his neck, and he dropped to his knees and then the ground.

“He can’t be the only one,” George said. “Pascal, Morgan, grab his blasters and anything that might look useful. We’re going to have to find some kind of schematic of this ship, a way to get us to the hangar bay.”

“Hey, um…in here! I could probably help with that!” a muffled but plaintive voice spoke from behind yet another door. Just how many prisoners had these pirates taken? “Please? Don’t…leave me here to get blown to kingdom come?”

She sounded young—too young to be held prisoner on a pirate ship—and afraid in a way that no self-respecting father of a teenage girl could ignore. George met DeWolff’s eyes, and she heaved a small resigned sigh before jogging away down the corridor. While she negotiated the release of the stranger, Pascal and Morgan returned, each toting a blaster. Morgan had relieved the Achernonian of a small satchel as well, having slung it over her shoulder and packed a few spare ammo cells inside.

“More of ‘em on the way,” Pascal said in a reedy voice. “We oughta move.”

Even as he spoke, hurried footsteps echoed from around the corner in the direction they’d come from, and it didn’t sound like another lone gunman to put down. George didn’t fancy their odds in an actual shootout.

“C’mon,” he said, leading the way toward DeWolff, who had blasted open yet another door and was retrieving the cell’s occupant. “We might have a guide.”

The girl was older than Gwen, fresh into adulthood though not much beyond. She had mocha-colored skin with a bare hint of freckles and eyes so bright brown they were nearly orange. Her face was impish, framed by ringlets of coal-black hair, and her default expression tripped every one of George’s Dad Alarms. Biting back a question as to what she’d used his debit card to buy this time, he watched the girl watch them approach, her eyes widening at their Imperial uniforms.

“I heard they were planning to go after an Imperial ship,” she said. “I didn’t think they’d actually do it.”

“They were well-prepared,” George admitted, leading the group along the corridor, away from the approaching footsteps. “Who are you?”

“Riri Williams,” she said as she hurried along next to him. “Look, I have a way to deal with all of these pirates, but we have to get to my droid in the workshop first.”

“What’s your relation to these guys?” George asked. “How did you get here?”

They entered a stairwell, a metal grate staircase spiraling up and down. A helpful sign on the wall said _‘Workshop’_ in both Aurabesh and Huttese, with an arrow pointing upward. George also noted, among many others, a sign with a downward-facing arrow next to _‘Hangar’_ , which would probably at least throw their attackers for a loop for a few moments.

“They picked me up on Geonosis,” Riri said as they hurried up the stairs. “I busted into one of the old droid facilities, found a whole warehouse of these old battle droids and destroyers. They didn’t have any of the BX-series, the old commando droids? Even _one_ of those, if you know how to tweak the programming a bit? You have your own private soldier.”

“I’m guessing they were after your droid expertise?” DeWolff asked from the back. “And they didn’t ask nicely?”

“Oh, they asked plenty nicely,” Riri said in a sardonic tone. “They just didn’t let me say no.”

“That would explain how they _got_ a small army of droids,” Pascal sneered at the girl. “Thanks a lot, kid.”

“Pascal,” George said sharply. “She’s helping us now, and that’s what matters.”

Riri led them up two more flights of stairs, and George spent the whole dash looking around for cameras or sentry droids. On a ship this vast, though, it was simply infeasible to monitor every corridor and room. The prison block was obvious, though he had a feeling they’d draw every pirate in this place once they entered the workshop. Finally, they emerged from the stairwell into another corridor, long windows bathing industrial brown metal in the ethereal glow of hyperspace. Riri paused at a large door, reaching out to open it before George stopped her with a hand.

“DeWolff, Pascal, clear the room,” he instructed. DeWolff wordlessly took up the lead, standing on one side of the door door while Pascal took up the other and slammed a hand on the panel to open it. Both hurried in while the other four waited outside.

“Clear!” DeWolff called back. “There’s a camera, though, so we better hurry this along.”

Inside, the room was surprisingly large. It looked like it had once held rows upon rows of metal racking, likely for storage of bulk goods for transport. Several of them had apparently been cleared out though (George could see holes and faint outlines in the floor where they had once stood), making room for a workspace of sorts. Droid parts and half-finished projects littered shelves, tables, and a few sets of hanging racks.

Riri passed a few skeletal frames of old B1-series battle droids and crouched next to a squat astromech droid. It sat on two legs with a central stabilizer, much like the classic R2-series, though it seemed to have undergone extensive modification in the past. A boxy add-on of unknown function had been grafted to its front, a Stark arc reactor was now embedded in its side, and the dome atop its body had evidently been salvaged from an old R1 unit.

It was difficult to see in the dim lighting, but George was also sure that the thing’s left leg had been replaced from another unit or even cobbled together from salvage, judging by the mismatched paint job it sported.

“Hey, Viz,” Riri greeted the droid in a warm voice. “You doing okay, buddy?”

She turned to the rest of them with a glance around the room.

“There are some weapons around here, on the shelves near the windows,” she told them. “They liked having me modify their guns. I need a second to get Viz up and running.”

“Everyone grab a weapon,” George instructed the others, following them to a rack of shelves stacked with an assortment of weapons. Scooping a blaster pistol up and testing out the feel of it in his left hand, George held it up and tested how steady he could keep it by simply propping it on his right wrist. He could handle a gun southpaw with some accuracy, though with his main hand essentially paralyzed, he would probably only be useful firing into a crowd of pirates. Of course, given the situation, that was a strong possibility in the near future.

“Pascal, look,” Burke called from a nearby table as he hefted a long, thin blade. “Vibrosword.”

“Oh, be careful with that,” Morgan fretted quietly. “They’ll take your arm off just as easy as a lightsaber.”

“Yeah, those were popular in the Clone Wars,” Pascal pointed out. “Give them to a droid with good enough sensor array, they can deflect blaster fire like a Jedi.”

“Jedi can _not_ deflect blaster fire,” Burke said, giving the sword a few experimental swings. “That’s a myth.”

“No, they could,” George piped in. “One of the first tricks they learn. I’ve seen Jedi do it, easy as breathing.”

“And they could slice a sword like that clean in two with their lightsaber,” Pascal said, seeming eager to rush to the defense of the Jedi. A fan? He had to be good at keeping secrets, then, in his occupation.

“Not _that_ sword,” Riri said while idly poking and prodding at her droid. “That’s an old Echani blade, with a cortosis weave. Phasma stole it from some collector on Xandar. He was hoping to get me to build a new hilt and cross-guard for it, but I’m not a craftsman. I couldn’t work with _any_ kind of a vibroblade, let alone Echani stuff.”

As she spoke, she shut a hatch on the front of her droid, reaching into a seam between its head and body. Seconds later, a strangled beeping sound emerged before faint lights began to flicker along it.

“P-p-p-powering up,” the droid spoke out, its voice a garbled monotone lacking any sort of inflection. “Greet-t-tings, Riri. It is good-ood to see you again.”

“I wasn’t aware astromechs could speak Basic,” DeWolff said, sounding almost intrigued at the oddity.

“Normally they can’t,” Riri said with a small hint of pride. “I modified Viz with a few necessities for what I do. I managed to rig up a protocol droid vocabulator, but they completely incompatible with astromech droids, so I had to work out a program to translate Binary to Basic in real time. The next step is a communications module, but first I have to figure out a solution to that stutter of his.”

“Riririri promised she wouldn’t ma-a-ake me as stuffy as protoc-c-col droid,” Viz said, turning his head to take in the sight of George and the rest. “What has happened? Why-y-y are there Imperials?”

“It’s a bit of a story, Viz, but I need you to slice into the droid control mainframe on this ship,” Riri said, gesturing at a terminal among the tables and workstations. “You know how I hide my stuff. It’s called _‘New Captain on Deck’_.”

“You-ou-ou got it!” Viz said, rolling over to the terminal and extending his data probe into a small access port at the base of the terminal.

“’ _New Captain on Deck_ ’?” George asked, and Riri shrugged.

“They weren’t gonna _let_ me go,” she said. “I started working out an escape as soon as they stuck me in here. You guys just pushed my plans up by about two weeks.”

“Captain!” Burke called from the door. “Pirates! Lots of ‘em, closing fast!”

“Are there any other exits?” George asked Riri, who shook her head.

“We don’t need to leave, though,” she said. “If we can hunker down here, these guys should be mopped up in about ten minutes.”

“By who?” DeWolff asked.

“Their own droid army.”

George and DeWolff exchanged a look, and DeWolff nodded.

“Secure the room!” she barked. “Barricade the door! Burke, help me drag that table over here!”

“They had me spend _days_ uploading their likenesses to the IFF matrix,” Riri said, moving to join Viz at the terminal. On screen, windows of data and code were springing up, providing tactical readouts, diagnostic information, and (strangely) a gallery of pictures of the very pirates that had taken them. “Every single pirate in this Ravager clan is on the whitelist and everyone else is the blacklist, marked for instant elimination. Thing is, with the blacklist empty, they’re just in normal defense mode. Once someone’s _added_ to it, they go into what I call HK-mode.”

“Hunter-Killer,” George guessed. “Like the old assassin droids.”

“Exactly,” Riri said with a dangerous smile on her face.

……

_\\\Booting…100% Complete_

_\\\ALERT: New Patch Detected. Downloading…_

_\\\Running: [“New Captain on Deck”].bat_

_\\\\..._

_\\\\..._

_\\\\..._

_\\\PIRATE SCUM DETECTED_

_\\\LONG LIVE GENERAL RIRI_

For good reason, the Separatist Droid Army had been one of the most feared military forces in modern memory, second only to the clones of the Grand Army of the Republic. While the clones had been formidable in their own right—being able to think and reason in a way a droid’s logic matrix was simply unable to—the sight of a wave of unfeeling metal armed to the servos with all manner of unpleasant weaponry had been and still was a chilling thing to behold. There was no reasoning with a droid, no notions that one was dealing with a living, thinking person. There was only the knowledge that you were the objective, and nine times out of ten, the objective was to kill.

On this day in particular, the Ravagers aboard the _Eclector_ were the objective.

“Open the door!” one of the pirates shouted while another poked fruitlessly at the control panel, having removed the casing and started tugging randomly at wires in an ill-informed attempt at slicing. All around the pair, nearly two dozen others waited with blasters at the ready. “You’re trapped! There’s no other way out, you fools!”

Suddenly, the group collectively jumped as the lights in the corridor went out, plunging them into darkness save for the swirling hyperspace tableau outside. It was dim, insubstantial lighting, unless one happened to be a combat droid with built-in night vision and thermal readouts.

“TARGETS SIGHTED.”

“ROGER-ROGER.”

With those two statements made in the typical battle droid monotone, a hail of blaster fire lit up the pirates, producing a strobing red effect that illuminated the wholesale slaughter. Just as the pirates had done so many times before, no quarter was given and no mercy was had. Caught by surprise, half of them were down before the rest had even realized they were being fired upon and managed to scramble in a retreat. The droids pursued them implacably, picking through the bodies of their fallen foes.

“B SQUAD, GUARD GENERAL RIRI’S COMMAND CENTER UNTIL THE SHIP IS SECURE,” the commander spoke with synthesized authority. “SQUADS C THROUGH G, FAN OUT AND SEARCH THE SHIP. GENERAL RIRI IS GIVING NO QUARTER TO PIRATE SCUM. EXTERMINATE WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.”

“ROGER-ROGER.”

……

“They’re certainly efficient,” George observed, watching the droids mercilessly mowing down pirates as they swept the whole ship. In front of him, a cluster of various screens and holodisplays allowed him to view the carnage from multiple angles. The droids would disappear into a corner of one screen and reappear seconds later in another several rows down, whereupon they would dispatch yet another cluster of pirates. If they hadn’t been the scum of the galaxy, George might have bad for the poor devils.

“Phasma had them running on super basic protocols,” Riri said. “But the Techno Union knew how to program a battle droid. They have thousands of military maneuvers in there, and a fuzzy logic matrix that allows them to select the most appropriate one for the moment. The Republic propaganda machine tried to make them out to be these clunky, useless tin cans, but these things were the pinnacle of military programming back in the day.”

“The clone troopers would’ve been upset to hear that,” George said with a little grin, jolting a bit when a monotone droid voice spoke out of the console.

“GENERAL RIRI, THE SHIP IS SECURE. WE HAVE APPREHENDED SEVEN PASSENGERS NOT ON THE BLACKLIST. SHOULD WE DISPATCH THEM?”

“No, Commander,” Riri said. “Have them brought to the bridge. We’ll meet you there.”

“How long until we’re out of hyperspace?” George asked. Riri shot a look at Viz, whose head spun away from the console.

“O-o-oh, I’d say ab-bout five minutes?” the astromech said. “We’ll be arriv-iving at Nar Shaddaa-aa-aa.”

“Typical pirate hangout,” George muttered. “The Empire has virtually no presence on Nar Shaddaa. It’s under the control of a crime lord who calls himself the Grandmaster. Even without Phasma to cause us grief, there’s no telling what kind of problems we’d find there.”

“Viz, what if we just…kept going?” Riri asked. “Didn’t disengage the hyperdrive?”

“Well, we-e-e’d overshoot Nar Shaddaa straight-t-t to…Boonta,” Viz told her, and on the console in front of him appeared a map of Outer Rim, with a blinking cursor over Boonta. It was a small planet located galactic-north of Hutt Space, though not officially within its bounds.

“Have you ever been?” DeWolff asked George, and he shook his head.

“Viz, compile?” Riri asked.

“Comp-p-piling Boonta!” the droid said in cheery monotone before whirring its head back toward the screens for a moment. An image of a planet sprung up, a pale, sickly yellow sphere with the occasional reddish line wending along the surface. All around the window, information panes flickered into view, each beginning a slow scroll through pertinent information.

“Desert climate, breathable air,” George read. “Hutt-controlled, but not the cesspool that Nar Shaddaa is, at least.”

“There’s an orbital scrapyard,” Riri said with longing in her voice. “This hunk of junk could use a mechanic’s touch, someone who actually knows what she’s doing and isn’t just jamming components wherever they’ll fit.”

“There are plenty of shuttles in the hangar,” DeWolff added. “We could send a party down to the surface, resupply.”

“I wasn’t exactly planning to steal a pirate ship,” George said with a wry smile. “It’s almost poetic.”

“So, we’re going to Boonta?” Riri asked, and George nodded.

“Let’s get to the bridge,” he said. “We need to take stock of this thing.”

……

_In her dream, Gwen stood on the large deck that stretched across the back of the Stacy household in Delaney. The sun had dipped behind a low mountain on the horizon, making the evening seem later than it was and causing the lanterns hovering throughout the yard to spring to life, bobbing over the deck and the yard like giant robotic fireflies. A fire was burning away in the pit set in the backyard, and Dad was nearby, grilling sausages while chatting with one of the neighbors._

_It was perfect, Gwen found herself thinking, and almost painfully nostalgic. This was the sort of carefree summer evening she had taken for granted in her younger days, where school had been a far-off concern and every day was utter bliss._

_“Gwen!” a voice called, and she saw a small red-headed girl sitting by the fire holding a stick. “Come roast a mallow!”_

_Hurrying down the steps of the deck with a giggle, Gwen made her way toward the fire. She had a poker and was just reaching for a mallow when a thunderous rushing sound filled the air, a booming noise between an explosion and a gale of wind. Gwen looked around for the source only to discover that she was alone in the yard. Dad, the neighbor, the red-headed girl, everyone that had been milling around the little party had disappeared._

_“Dad!?” she called, searching frantically around as a low, ominous hum filled the air, which buzzed with energy that made the hairs on her arms stand on end. A cacophony of shrieks went up, and a flash of purple light filled her vision, growing brighter and brighter until she was blinded –_

Gasping, Gwen sucked in a breath as her eyes snapped open, and for a disorienting moment she had no idea where she was. It was pitch black, and the still silence seemed to ring with the imagined screams from her dream. Gradually, memories of the past twelve or so hours resurfaced. Pirates, the escape pod, landing on Tatooine, meeting Miles and his strange friend… After a blissful shower followed by some of the best stew she’d ever eaten in her life (homemade food was so much better than the government-issue fare from the ship’s cafeteria!), Gwen had been shown a spare room in the common house and promptly fallen into bed. Sleep had come all too easily after that.

Sadly, it hadn’t stuck around.

With a sigh, Gwen resigned herself to wakefulness for now; no way would she be able to get back to sleep after that. It had all felt so real, and so heartbreaking. The smell of clean air and grass, the humid feel of an Alderaan summer, the faint haze of smoke from the fire…it was like she’d been transported back to her youth, to simpler times before Dad’s career had taken off and he’d simply helped coordinate the Alderaanian fleet from ground control. She and Dad had only been back to Alderaan two times in the six years since shipping out, and neither of those visits had been anywhere near home. To be plunged back into the depths of her memories with such clarity had been…bittersweet.

The all-consuming flash of horrible screaming purple light had been a strange way to end things, but Gwen was ready to chalk that up to her experience over the past day.

Still, a nightmare was a nightmare, and Gwen had a ritual when those cropped up. A trip to the bathroom, some warm water on her face, and maybe a midnight snack if she could find her way back to the kitchen.

Out in the hallway of the common house, it was a brisk night, though nothing Gwen wasn’t accustomed to after years aboard a cold, utilitarian Imperial cruiser. Miles’s borrowed pajamas were slightly loose around her frame (despite being two years younger than her, the life of a farmer had done wonders for his physique), though they were delightfully warm. Clothing options on Tatooine were as bipolar as its regular temperatures; loose light fabrics during the day kept the suns’ rays at bay while allowing ventilation, and thicker sleepwear prevented a chill from the frigid dry air.

It was a strange glimpse at everyday life on this odd planet, and the most striking part of it to Gwen was how normal it seemed to everyone else, how happy and content they were. She found herself a bit envious of their simple lives.

After a short trip to the bathroom, she made her way carefully through the semidarkness of the hallway, passing along narrow slits of moonlight—as if two suns weren’t enough, Tatooine boasted three brilliantly-lit moons. A chronometer on the wall above the archway leading to the kitchen told Gwen it was nearly six in the morning, though the smaller numbers below indicated that the Galactic Standard day was already half over.

If things ever got back to normal, her sleep cycle was going to be ruined.

A dim light was already coming from the kitchen, and soft voices floated out as she approached.

“…understand how it could possibly be connected.”

“And I don’t understand how you think it _couldn’t_ be. It’s too much happening all at the same time.”

The first voice was one Gwen only sort of recognized. Miles’s mother, Rio, who lived on the plantation with Miles and Farmer Banner. She and Gwen had met briefly during dinner, though Gwen had been too catatonic with the emotional weight of the day and a need for sleep to really participate beyond stuffing her face.

The second voice was Farmer Banner himself, sounding much less calm and collected than he had before.

“It’s a big galaxy,” Rio said, and Gwen peeked in to see her standing behind the kitchen bar in a robe and pouring Banner a glass of blue milk. The creamy drink was a staple around these parts though not at all to Gwen’s tastes; she winced a bit as Banner took a drink. Rio turned back toward the refrigerator with the pitcher of milk, her eyes widening a bit when she spotted Gwen. “Oh, Gwen. Everything okay?”

Rio Morales was, to Gwen, the quintessential mother. She had gorgeous bronze skin and big brown eyes that spoke of nothing but warmth and nurturing, and her hair was thick and dark, falling over her shoulders in sleek curls that made Gwen self-conscious about her colorless blonde locks. When she saw Gwen, she smiled easily and genuinely, holding up the pitcher of milk with a questioning expression.

“Oh, um…no, thank you,” Gwen said. “I’ve never liked milk, even the blue stuff.”

“It is a bit heavy, isn’t it?” Rio said with mirthful expression. “Did you have a bad dream?”

“Yeah,” Gwen admitted, stepping into the kitchen, which was large and mostly dark save for a single lamp over the bar. Banner wordlessly pulled out a stool and gave it a pat, Gwen taking the hint and climbing to sit next to him.

“Not surprising, given the day you’ve had,” he said. “Good news, though. Ganke fixed your droid. Stayed up for hours making sure there were no tracking devices or anything. We were waiting to activate him until you were awake.”

“Kaysix is okay?” Gwen asked, feeling a swell of joy at the news that even one small connection to normalcy had been restored. “Can I see him?”

“You just crawled out of bed, sweetheart,” Rio said in a gently admonishing tone. “Maybe you should at least have some breakfast.”

“I’m not even hungry,” Gwen said with a shake of her head. Truth be told, she was sure Kaysix would probably have some idea of how to get her back into contact with the Empire, maybe see if Dad’s ship had been saved. Even the few hours she’d spent here on Tatooine felt like too long (enjoyable though they’d been at times); she was ready to move on, for things to go back to normal.

“She’ll be okay, Rio,” Banner said, getting to his feet and sliding his empty glass toward the woman, who smiled ruefully at the pair. It was such an expression of motherly affection that Gwen felt an ache in her gut, a strange longing that she quickly quashed. There were bigger concerns than her personal issues to contend with right now.

“If you feel tired later today, don’t let those boys keep you out and about,” she said. “You can always come back here for a nap.”

“I’ll remember that,” Gwen said as she scooted off her stool to follow Banner. Out in the chilly Tatooine morning, the sky was still pitch-black overhead, though the western horizon was already glowing faintly with an impending dawn; Tatooine spun in retrograde, she’d found out. Still, the air would remain chilly until the suns fully rose, at which time that trademark Tatooine heat would come fast and hot. For now, Gwen was glad she’d thought to wear slippers, at least.

“I hope Rio isn’t coming on too strong,” Banner said into the quiet. “She likes you. She’s hoping you stay with us.”

“I… Really?” Gwen blurted; that was…slightly unnerving. “Already? I’ve barely had a conversation with her.”

“Even so,” Banner told her, “Miles likes you. You know how moms get when their son brings a girl home, even if they’re just friends.”

“Not really,” Gwen shrugged. “My mom died when I was really little. I don’t…even remember her all that well.”

“Oh,” Banner faltered at that. “You and your father are really close, then?”

“Yeah,” Gwen smiled. “We don’t get to see each other a lot, because of his work. But we always have a lot of fun when we do. Sometimes he gets time off while we’re planetside, and he’ll take me to a fancy dinner or a movie or shopping.”

“And he buys whatever you want?” Banner guessed. Gwen let a thoughtful hum at that, shrugging again.

“If I ask for something, he’ll usually get it for me,” she said. “But…it’s more fun just to have time with Dad. What am I gonna do with a huge wardrobe of clothes on an Imperial cruiser, you know?”

“What’s your plan for finding him?” Banner asked, which seemed a bit of an abrupt change in subject.

“Well…hop a shuttle to Alderaan and wait at the base in Delaney, I guess,” Gwen said. “Normally I’d wait on whatever planet I wound up on for troopers to come and get me, but…that’ll definitely cause you guys trouble. I’ll just say I didn’t feel safe in this place and wanted to get out as soon as possible.”

“A perfectly believable excuse around here,” Banner observed.

They slowed to a stop as they reached one of the many workshops among the plantation, which a sign above a large bay door proclaimed as _‘Droid Repair’_. Banner went to a smaller door to the right, fiddling with a panel next to it, and seconds later the door slid open with a grating drag that spoke of sand-clogged mechanisms. Banner led the way in. Following, Gwen’s eyes were just beginning to adjust to the darkness and make out looming robotic figures in the shadows when a bright overhead light momentarily blinded her as it flared to life.

“Ah, sorry, should’ve warned you about the light,” Banner said in sheepish tones. “This used to be a greenhouse before we had the hydroponic garden put in. The bulbs are good for twenty years, and I just can’t bring myself to change them.”

“Probably makes it easy to see all the wires and stuff you’re working with,” Gwen said, and Banner pointed at her with a smile.

“See? I say that all the time, but Ganke always finds a reason to complain about them.”

He stood next to a simple droid repair frame, where Gwen saw Kaysix had been perched in a hunched position, awaiting activation. Other than a few scratches in his paint job and a slight dent in his right shoulder, he looked no worse for wear.

“How do you activate him?” Gwen asked.

“The master power switch is here in his back,” Banner said, fiddling around with Kaysix’s rear panel. “We didn’t wanna turn him on without you around, in case he got a little eager to find you.”

“Yeah, a loose enforcer droid is probably not what you need around here,” Gwen smirked. Seconds later, Kaysix’s eyes slowly lit up, a quiet keening whirr sounding as his servos and systems powered on. He twitched a couple of times before lifting his head and standing straight. His head nearly brushed the ceiling, he was so tall. “Kaysix? Can you hear me?”

“Boot sequence complete,” Kaysix spoke, his head twitching as his gaze fell on Gwen. “Oh. You’re alive. My programming tells me that this is ideal.”

“It’s good to see you, too, Kaysix,” Gwen said with a smile. “This is Farmer Banner. He and his friends saved us from the desert after we crash-landed.”

“I know,” Kaysix said flatly. “I was online but completely unable to move for an hour after we landed.”

“Oh…” Gwen said, remembering well the lackadaisical way they’d pulled Kaysix from the escape pod. The silence stretched uncomfortably for a moment before Kaysix spoke again.

“I am grateful that you did not leave me in the desert,” he told her. “I was of no use to you in my broken state. It was unnecessary to do what you did. Sentient behavior is strange like that.”

“We’re a whole bundle of craziness sometimes,” Gwen said with a little smile before turning back to Banner. “Thank you. Or…tell Ganke I said so if I don’t see him before I go.”

“In a hurry to leave?” Banner asked.

“I need to make sure my dad’s okay,” Gwen said. “I…don’t really know how I’m gonna _do_ that, but the first step is getting to Alderaan. Dad always told me that if we ever lost track of each other and I couldn’t stay where I was that I should go to his old base in Delaney and talk to a man named John Jameson.”

“You don’t have any other family anywhere?” Banner settled onto a stool near the large droid stand and peered up at her.

“Nuh-uh,” Gwen shook her head. “It’s always just been me and dad.”

Banner studied her carefully, with that same piercing gaze. The silence stretched on for just long enough to begin to become uncomfortable before he spoke.

“Do you know much about your mother?” he finally asked. “Has your dad told you anything about her?”

“She worked at a shipping dock near the base in Delaney where he was stationed,” Gwen told him. “They took the same shuttle home every day, and he would sneak looks at her all the time. She finally stared him down one day and asked if he would just ask her to dinner already.”

Banner snickered at that, and Gwen felt her lips pull into a smile at the thought. She’d never seen her parents interact, but just listening to Dad reminisce about her, it was obvious that he’d been head over heels for Mom.

“That sounds like something Helen would say.”

Gwen froze. A strange shiver rolled down her spine, and she whipped her head around to see Banner looking back with a level expression.

“I knew from the moment I saw you,” he said. “You’re Helen Kloves’s daughter. You look exactly like her.”

“How do you know my mom?” Gwen asked in what she thought was a rather level voice given the circumstances. Every muscle in her body felt on edge, and she was fighting the urge to sic Kaysix on the farmer. At the thought that there was a massive enforcer droid that was completely beholden to her in the room with Banner, she relaxed, though only a bit.

“We trained together,” Banner said with a sudden faraway, wistful expression, “at the Jedi academy on Coruscant. She was…a wise, powerful Jedi. I’d never met someone so skilled with a saberstaff before. I don’t think I ever saw her lose a fight.”

Gwen simply shook her head; it was impossible, what he was saying. Her mother, a Jedi? Jedi didn’t _have_ families. Little was still known about the enigmatic Force-using knights ever since they’d turned on the Republic and been snuffed out by the clone armies of a decade past, but Gwen was sure that they hadn’t allowed romantic attachment.

And families, ideally, started with some degree of romantic attachment.

But Gwen had never once mentioned her mother’s name, much less her maiden name. What reason did Banner have to lie, if he already knew so much?

“A Jedi?” she spoke, her voice having lost any measure of levelness she’d been able to give it and coming out instead as a dry choke.

“And a good friend,” Banner said. “I didn’t say anything at first, but…you have a long, difficult road ahead of you. It’s important that you know, and you’re aware of the potential that you have.”

“Potential?” Gwen was feeling increasingly like a Pecoppi parrot, unable to do anything but repeat the doctor’s words.

“The Force is strong in you, Gwen,” Banner told her. “I could feel it faintly when we first met, but it’s only growing stronger, reacting to the stress of your situation, your need for strength during your ordeal. Your mother was powerful, and a formidable Jedi. That same strength is in you.”

It was as though a rug had been pulled out from under her feet, and just when she’d regained her footing, the floor itself had dropped out from under her. Gwen was reeling—already in the midst of wrapping her head around the idea that the Empire wasn’t some rigid if well-meaning autocracy but in fact an oppressive military dictatorship, now she was being told that her mother had been a member of the monastic order that had necessitated the governmental shift in the first place?

“But the Jedi…they betrayed the Republic,” Gwen insisted, hoping that by simply speaking the words she’d been told for so long by Dad and her tutors growing up that some semblance of order would be restored. “They tried to seize power and assassinate the Supreme Chancellor. He restructured the government and took control in order to restore order.”

“The Jedi weren’t without fault,” Banner said, “but they would never betray the Republic, and they would never assassinate anyone. They… _we_ had gotten complacent, blind to even the possibility that a threat existed that we couldn’t handle. In our…arrogance, we allowed one right into the heart of the Republic.”

He spoke with such passion and such profound _regret_ in his voice that Gwen didn’t dare try to refute him. Here she was, a Pecoppi parrot all over again but this time repeating Dad’s words—the capital-T Truth she’d been fed all her life. Her argument felt feeble and rehearsed, though, with no input of her own to back it up. Outside of her Imperial bubble, presented with a point of view completely contrary to that Truth, she felt herself faltering in the face of this passionate diatribe.

“The Supreme Chancellor,” Banner went on, oblivious to her internal struggle, “was what is called a Sith. A Sith is the antithesis to a Jedi. They use the Force selfishly, as a tool to gain power and influence. They revel in pain and suffering and view hatred as the source of their strength. Supreme Chancellor Eisenhardt was a Sith Lord, known as Darth Magnus.”

“Like Darth Vader?” Gwen asked. Banner nodded.

“Darth Vader was Darth Magnus’s protégé,” he said. “With Magnus dead, Vader is likely looking for one of his own, to carry on the legacy. I’m not a betting man, but I’d wager a lot that’s you.”

“But…how would he know I’m…that I have the Force?” Gwen asked. “ _I_ didn’t even know.”

In the back of her mind, Gwen wondered if Dad had known about her Force-sensitivity. It seemed like something that should have come up at some point! Maybe he’d been putting off discussing it? The puberty talk had been awkward enough (and had required DeWolff’s intervention for some of the more important parts); discussing her Jedi parentage would have probably somehow been worse.

Maybe.

“Darth Vader has unlimited resources at his disposal,” Banner said. “Somehow, it must have gotten back to him that you had potential. A blood sample during a routine physical, a secret journal of your mom’s, maybe she even told the Jedi council about your dad and they kept a record of it in their archives. Whatever the case, he knows, and you’re on his radar.”

Gwen couldn’t help a small, frustrated whine at that. It was the sound of a petulant teenager, she knew—a noise made when informed that she would have to attend a boring ribbon ceremony or ship safety briefing. But she didn’t _want_ some evil Dark Lord chasing her across the galaxy, even if it supposedly meant that she had amazing Jedi powers. Twenty-four hours ago, she’d been lamenting life on the _Sentinel_ , wishing for some measure of excitement. In a twist so cliché that it hardly counted as a twist, she’d been handed more excitement than she could have ever possibly prepared for.

“I know this is a lot to take in,” Banner said in placating tones. “I wish you didn’t have to deal with any of it. I wish I could just take you to Mos Eisley and send you on a ship to Alderaan. But I have a feeling that wouldn’t end well for you. In fact, I’m sure it wouldn’t.”

“But…what about Dad?” Gwen asked, flinching a bit as she already knew what Banner would tell him.

“Gwen…I think you need to be prepared for the possibility that your dad…didn’t make it,” Banner said.

“No,” she said flatly, shaking her head. “No, he’s not – “

“Even if the pirates didn’t…. Vader will see him as a loose – “

“No!” Gwen shouted, clenching her hands into fists. Even the mere thought of Dad being…gone was too unbearable for her to entertain.

“This subject is causing her distress,” Kaysix’s voice spoke, and Gwen looked up to see him looming over her. “As she is my primary charge, I would appreciate if you refrain from this, as I’m not programmed with therapeutic subroutines.”

Despite the droid’s imposing stature and generally menacing appearance, Gwen found herself backing up toward him, seeking any measurable amount of support. Kaysix stood silent and waiting as she glared through tears at Banner.

“Thank you for all of your help, Mr. Banner,” she said evenly. “I…really do appreciate it. And tell Miles and Ganke that I’m grateful to them, too.”

“Gwen,” Banner said. “This isn’t something you can just say ‘no’ to and expect to go away. What are you planning to do? If you go back to the Empire, Vader will have you within hours.”

“I don’t care about Vader or the Empire or Jedi or any of that,” Gwen said, wiping her eyes and forcing her voice past a lump in her throat. She would not be some little girl dissolving into tears because she missed her dad.

Even though she did.

“Then where – “

“I’m going to find my dad,” Gwen said. “With or without the Empire.”

“Gwen… Wait, Gwen, _wait_!”

At the stairs, Gwen was just about to pause at the strange note of urgency in Banner’s voice when a familiar set of white armor descended into view, scuffed and stained from the sands of the Dune Sea. Gwen had never seen stormtrooper armor anything less than pristine and inspection-ready, but this one had spent a day or longer planetside and was showing some wear for it. She had just enough time to register the signature pauldron and survival pack of a sandtrooper when a gruff voice spoke through the helmet’s mouthpiece.

“Sorry about this, Miss Stacy.”

He leveled his blaster at her, squeezing the trigger, and Gwen’s world went dark.


	3. Chapter 3

“Commander Cody.”

“General Banner.”

“I haven’t been a general in well over a decade, Cody,” Banner said. “You all saw to that, didn’t you?”

“We followed orders,” Cody said, stooping to scoop up the fallen Stacy girl. She was a slight thing, easy for him to lift and settle onto his shoulder. “Like good soldiers.”

“Maybe a good soldier follows orders, but a good _person_ knows better than to do so without question,” Banner insisted. Cody let a quiet chuckle at that.

“A clone isn’t a person,” he said. “That was the point. Engineered to be perfect. Follow orders, do as you’re told, no questions. You Jedi should know all about that.”

He took a step back, toward the stairs leading up and out, and Banner’s hand twitched. Almost faster than Cody could track, there was a long metal cylinder in his hand, and with a cracking hiss, a bright amber blade of pure plasma burst from the end.

“Put her down,” Banner said over the low hum of his blade. Cody had been told once that the superheated plasma was constantly cooking the air as it came into contact with the blade, producing a steady droning noise that often varied based on the make of the saber.

“You don’t give the orders anymore,” Cody insisted, jerking his free thumb over his shoulder. “He does.”

Footsteps sounded behind him, and Banner visibly tensed when he saw the new arrival, despite his rather nondescript facial features. Emil Blonsky was a plain man with brown hair cut in a militaristic style and the bare beginnings of a stubble giving his jawline its only definition. Dull black armor seemed to suck in the light around it, and as if the message wasn’t clear enough, a black armorweave duster fell just past his knees. Though it was barely audible under most circumstances, in the quiet of the warehouse they’d tracked Banner to, the dull hum of a life-support system hissed and puffed unceasingly. Cody didn’t know much about its function beyond the fact that the Final Inquisitor evidently needed it for his duties.

His wasn’t the place to ask questions.

“Blonksy,” Banner said with a humorless grin. “It’s quite a day for reunions, isn’t it?”

“A reunion too long in the making, I assure you, Bruce,” Blonsky said with a glance at Banner’s lightsaber. “Still using your old one? Not a painful reminder of your past?”

“I’ve learned that the past isn’t something to run away from,” Bruce said. “It’s something to be _learned_ from.”

“Oh, I agree wholeheartedly,” Blonsky said. “I’ve learned much from our time together. To not to quit. To never give up. I never gave up on you, Bruce. I knew we’d meet again, and when we did, we’d finally finish the fight we started so long ago.”

“Well, that’s…heartwarming,” Banner said with a little shrug. “Sick, sadistic, but heartwarming, I guess.”

“Speaking of hearts,” Blonsky said, reaching for a lightsaber at his hip and drawing it out. “I’ll have yours, carved from your chest and still beating in the palm of my hand.”

“Now that’s intense,” Banner said while Blonsky ignited his lightsaber, which was much like Banner’s except a bright, burning red—the standard for any self-respecting Sith. The two blades seemed to harmonize with each other—Banner’s was a higher keen while Blonsky’s issued a low purr—as they moved through a few stances to gauge the other’s moves. Banner shifted to hold his blade in both hands aloft in front of him, only for Blonsky to move his to his right hand with his left outstretched behind him. This continued for a few seconds until finally, Banner held a hand out toward Blonksy, fingers curled as though to grab something with the Force…before he aimed instead toward Cody. The soldier realized what was happening too slowly to do anything about it, and the girl shot from his grip, flying toward the Jedi just as Blonsky ran at him.

“No!” Cody shouted. “The girl!”

“Dash the girl!” Blonsky shouted, though his voice was barely audible over the shrieking of the lightsabers’ plasma blades clashing together while Banner effortlessly parried Blonsky’s wild swings. “This is between Banner and I!”

This fool was going to get the girl killed, and Vader would have both their heads. Thinking of nothing else he could do (and nothing he would rather do _less_ ), he hurried forward. Through the flurry of lightsaber blades, Banner was just visible handing the girl to a KX droid. The briefing before the mission had mentioned that one might have been accompanying the girl, though Banner had to have somehow removed the thing’s restraining bolt; enforcer’s were programmed to immediately announce their presence upon seeing a member of the Imperial military.

“Droid! Put the girl down!” he insisted. A KX-series was _supposed_ to defer to any ranking member of the military lieutenant and up, but the droid turned to him with a look that could only be described as impudent (a feat, given its lack of expressive features).

“My name is Kaysix, and I’d rather not do that,” it said. It took off between racks of equipment toward the back of the shed with a grumbling Cody hot in pursuit. Before he could get too far, a strange shockwave filled the room as Banner pushed Blonsky away, sending him careening into the opposite wall. The Jedi spun away from the fight and fixed his eyes on Cody, who quickly reached for his blaster and raised it.

_Pew!_

Banner effortlessly sent the bolt careening away off his blade.

_Pew!_

Again, it bounced away and hit a rack, sending a cascade of droid parts tumbling to the floor.

 _Pew_!

“Ah!” Cody shouted as the bolt was sent right back to him, catching him in the leg. “Blonsky! The droid! After the droid!”

“We are not _finished_!” Blonsky shouted, hurling his lightsaber toward Banner. The red blade spun in the air, presumably guided and propelled by the Force, but Banner spun away from it with inhuman grace, bending his body in ways that made Cody’s muscles ache just to watch.

He was so enthralled by the sight that he didn’t even realize the blade was heading right for him until it had severed his arm and leg.

The initial lance of pain was short but nauseating, as every nerve ending in his arm and leg screamed in protest. This was followed shortly by a dull throb as his brain registered a total lack of sensation that had once been there, a stiff ache in fingers and toes that he no longer had. Suddenly off balance, he felt himself beginning to fall, reflexively attempting to steady his stance before pitching forward toward the ground. He managed to put his one remaining arm out to keep himself from landing face first, but the sudden movements aggravated the overblown nerve endings in his cauterized limbs. Gasping out quick breaths, he was vaguely aware of the fight continuing in the background, a loud metallic screech sounding before morning sunlight spilled into the room. One of the Force-users had ripped the bay door away. Reflexively, Cody tried to sit up to assess the damage, but he found he was unable to support himself, collapsing as he overbalanced on his one remaining arm.

“Captain!” a voice shouted, and Dobalina hurried over to him. “Cap—by the stars! Medic! Palmer, get over here!”

Lieutenant Palmer hurried over, and Cody’s helmet was pulled away.

“The girl,” he gasped. “A droid took her.”

“A team is in pursuit,” Dobalina said. “Appo’s leading, so there’s proper clone leadership.”

Cody tried to grin, but it probably looked more like a grimace; he liked Dobalina. A sharp stinging came from his neck, but with a throbbing hurt starting to seep into the stumps where his limbs had been, it barely registered. Palmer had removed her helmet as well, revealing short brown hair and intensely blue eyes. Palmer was young, still sporting a spattering of freckles across her nose.

Maybe there were some merits to recruiting from outside his limited gene pool after all.

“Dobalina, radio for evac,” she said. “Have a team of medical droids on standby. Two lightsaber-related amputations and a blaster wound, left thigh.”

Of course, the leg he’d lost hadn’t been the one that had gotten shot.

“Where’ve the other two gone?” Cody asked. “Banner and Blonsky?”

In response to his question, an echoing boom came from outside, followed by a peal of manic laughter from Blonsky.

“It’s going really well,” Palmer said flatly. “Lie still.”

……

Ganke had come into his fair share of strange days at the Banner Plantation. Farmer Banner seemed to attract the unusual and outlandish to his little patch of Tatooine, and it thus wasn’t at all unheard of to catch him in the middle of shooing off some upstart Jawas, having a calm chat with a lone Tusken raider, or entertaining a guest that had landed a starship directly in his backyard.

And so, when Ganke heard the obvious sounds of some sort of commotion upon reaching the wall around the plantation, he wasn’t extremely worried, though this was definitely the most chaotic things had sounded in some time. Sliding his key card into the slot next to the door, he watched the reinforced metal slide open to reveal –

“What the…?”

This morning, there was no simple show of Farmer Banner’s eccentricity; it was utter pandemonium. The courtyard was swarming with stormtroopers, who seemed to be trading blaster fire with Banner’s entire stock of farming droids. In the midst of it all was Farmer Banner himself, who was toting a—was that a _lightsaber_!?

“ _What_ the…!?”

Sure enough, Ganke’s boss was swinging and lunging with a bright amber lightsaber, trading hits with a man in a black coat and an impressive set of matte black armor. There were shouted words being exchanged, but Ganke could barely hear them let alone make out anything among the din of battle.

“Ganke!” Miles’s voice shouted, and Ganke turned to see him standing in the doorway of the common house, frantically motioning him inside. Needing no further encouragement, Ganke hurried toward his friend, the door shutting and leaving the sounds of the battle muffled behind him. Inside the kitchen, Rio was pacing back and forth near the bar counter while muttering frantically to herself. Ganke took a shaky breath to steady himself before turning to his friend.

“What is – “

“I have no idea,” Miles said. “Mom just woke me up like four minutes ago.”

Indeed, Ganke finally noticed that Miles was still wearing his pajamas, though as he spoke, he began shucking the thick wear and changing into his lighter outdoor clothes. It wasn’t just a matter of appropriate attire; going outside in pajamas in the daytime on Tatooine was a recipe for rapid and potentially fatal heatstroke.

“Banner,” Ganke said. “He’s a Jedi. He was fighting with a lightsaber.”

“I saw,” Miles said with awe in his voice. “You didn’t know?”

“Of _course_ not,” Ganke said. “I’d’ve told you in like six seconds.”

“Same,” Miles grinned at him. Both jolted when a loud _THUD_ echoed down the small entryway.

“Please open the door,” a distant voice spoke from outside. “Miss Stacy is with me, and she is in danger.”

Miles hurried forward to hammer on the door button, and with a muted _swish_ , the droid Ganke had stayed up repairing stepped into the entryway, cradling an unconscious Gwen in his arms.

“Oh, what happened?” Rio gasped, hurrying forward and brushing between the two boys to check on her.

“She was stunned,” Kaysix spoke as though the answer should have been obvious. “The stormtroopers are here to apprehend her and bring her to Darth Vader.”

“What does Darth Vader want with Gwen?” Miles asked.

Before the droid could answer, voices shouted from outside.

“It was headed this way!”

“I’ve got life signs on the other side!”

“Get this door down, now!”

“We should run,” Kaysix said. “They will kill all of you, deactivate me, and take her.”

“The basement,” Rio said. “He has some kind of secret escape tunnel and a speeder.”

“Why does Banner have a secret escape tunnel?” Miles asked as they hurried through the back of the kitchen. In a small room that Ganke had always figured was a pantry, Rio opened the small control panel for the door, pressing a button inside it. With a noisy rumble, the back wall of the pantry slid away to reveal a spiraling staircase that descended out of sight.

“That is so cool…” Ganke observed.

“Go,” Rio insisted, ushering them through. She went last, tapping another button that had the wall closing up behind them. It would likely confuse the stormtroopers for a moment, but they had some pretty impressive scanning technology at their disposal; they would have to be quick.

The air grew cold and dry as they delved deep underground, the only illumination coming from utility lights set into the walls. At the bottom of the staircase, a long tunnel loomed ahead, stretching nearly out of sight. With no other option, they pressed forward.

“This is nuts,” Miles breathed as they hurried along. “What does he need all this for?”

“I mean, if he’s a Jedi, he had to know that…well, this kind of thing would happen,” Ganke said with a vague gesture toward the surface. Perhaps it was the shock of the discovery, but he was only now beginning to reel at the fact that Farmer Banner was a _Jedi_. Of course, it was no secret that some Jedi had escaped the Purge, as it was now known. Imperial propaganda had it that the Jedi had been plotting to overthrow the Republic and establish some oligarchy with their Order in charge. No one was sure what had actually happened, but given the current state of the Empire, it was highly likely that they had just been in the way of the Emperor and his tyranny.

But if there were holdouts like Banner, maybe there was hope for the Rebellion. Ganke wondered if Banner had gotten in touch with them, if any of his mysterious visitors had been Rebellion contacts sending word.

Would they all get to join now? Ganke itched at the thought of fighting back against the Empire. There was little else for them _to_ do at this point, as even if Banner’s moisture-farming operation survived this skirmish, he couldn’t exactly go back to his old life as a farmer, meaning Ganke was out of a job.

“Mnn…” a groggy noise floated through the still silence, followed by a sharp gasp. “No! Put me down!”

“Miss Stacy is conscious again,” Kaysix helpfully pointed out.

“Gwen, it’s okay,” Miles said in a calm voice. “It’s us. We got you away from them.”

“Are you okay, honey?” Rio asked as the group slowed to a stop.

“Miles?” Gwen asked. Her voice was raspy, like she’d been crying, and as she tried to speak again, she let a little cough. Ganke reached for the bag he’d toted along to work, unearthing a bottle of water harvested from one of Banner’s own vaporators. Gwen took it eagerly when he offered, popping the top and chugging nearly the whole thing.

“We’re escaping,” Miles told her. “I guess Banner has some kind of secret tunnel.”

“He has a lot of secrets,” Rio said in a wry voice. “Even _I_ didn’t know all of them, I guess.”

“You didn’t know he’s a Jedi?” Gwen asked, squirming out of Kaysix’s arms. “I thought at least you might have known.”

“I knew he was in touch with the Rebellion, but I had no idea that he’s a Jedi,” Rio said with a shake of her head. “I don’t blame him for not telling me, of course. Not that sort of thing.”

“There’s…more,” Gwen said. By now, they were moving again, and Gwen stared ahead at the darkness of the tunnel as she spoke. “He told me… _I’m_ a Jedi. Or my mom was. He said the…Force is strong in me.”

Several seconds of stunned silence followed this pronouncement.

“Your mom?” Miles asked. “But…I thought Jedi couldn’t have families or…get married or that kind of thing.”

“I guess that didn’t stop some of them from doing it anyway,” Gwen shrugged.

“It’s not unheard of,” Rio said. “What else did he tell you?”

“Well, I’m... I might have gotten a little upset at him?” Gwen went on, biting her lip. “It was just a lot to take in, and…”

“After all you’ve been through, finding out you’re the daughter of a Jedi would be pretty intense,” Ganke pointed out.

“I feel terrible,” Gwen sighed. “I said such…stupid, selfish things, and he’s risking his life for a chance for me to escape.”

“He’d forgive you in a second,” Rio insisted. “Don’t you even worry about it.”

“Do you think he’s gonna be okay?” Miles asked, voicing the worry all of them had.

They had reached the end of the tunnel, where a metal door led them into a cave overlooking the Dune Sea. The cave was small, and with all five of them the interior was a bit cramped. This was made worse by the presence of what had to be a speeder, covered in a heavy tarp to keep sand from blowing onto it through the mouth of the cave. Outside, a light wind had kicked up, promising at least a bit of cover. Hopefully the speeder had a few spare sets of goggles.

“Everybody in,” Rio said rather than answer Miles’s question.

Ganke was sure none of them wanted to think about the most realistic outcome.

……

“Do you know how long I’ve waited for this day!?” Blonsky crowed as he leapt to join Bruce, both of them balancing on the narrow wall around his plantation. Below, the operation Bruce had worked so hard to build for the past fifteen years was in shambles. His droids were mostly overrun by stormtroopers, and several of his warehouses and workshops had been ransacked, with pillars of smoke billowing into the sky.

So much for retirement.

“I dunno, few years?” Bruce asked with a shrug. “I’ll be honest with you, Blonsky, this whole thing feels a bit one-sided. I’m not Lord Hulk anymore. I don’t do that now.”

“You can never stop being who you are,” Blonsky insisted.

“But who you are can change,” Bruce shot back.

Blonsky leapt forward, and Bruce parried a slash, blocking two more strikes.

“I became what I am to defeat Lord Hulk,” Bruce’s would-be nemesis growled. “Not some backwater _farmer_ with delusions of wisdom.”

“One of us is certainly deluded,” Bruce said, “but if you came here to defeat Lord Hulk, you’re gonna be disappointed.”

“Then I’ll cut _you_ down,” Blonsky snarled, “ _and_ your two little minions, the dark one and the Panathan. They’ll die quick. But your lovely lady friend? And the girl? Well, who knows what could happen to _them_ on the way to Lord Vader?”

“You and I both know you’re too afraid of Vader to try anything with them,” Bruce said. “You’re attempting to bait me, and it won’t work.”

He was rewarded with a strangled sound of fury from Blonsky’s throat, and the Sith charged at him, though he was moving with passion, and his fervor was affecting his stance. In his rage, Bruce’s attacker was swinging wildly, with sloppy movements. Bruce let him get a few more licks in before ducking under a swing, and Blonsky roared in pain as his arm was sliced above the elbow. His lightsaber sailed off to the side before Bruce caught it with the Force and pulled it to his free hand. Turning to face his self-proclaimed nemesis, he brandished both blades, taking a stance and watching Blonsky’s lips curl in a mad grin.

“Just like the old days, isn’t it?” he growled, clutching his severed stump. “Lord Hulk, master of Jar’Kai, whose flurry carved his opponents to pieces. You really haven’t changed at all, have you?”

“Neither have you,” Bruce said. “Still the Abomination.”

“You were a monster,” Blonksy said, though far from accusatory, his tone sounded eerily reminiscent—he was pining for days gone. “A name to be feared. I hunted you proudly, dared to chase you to the blackest corners of the galaxy and beyond the edges of the star maps. Because of you, I tasted the dark side, _true_ power, and because of you, I’ve become something so much greater than I could have imagined.”

“And I’m truly sorry for that,” Bruce sighed. He was just about to deactivate the lightsabers and make a break for it when Blonksy jerked to his feet.

“No…” he snarled. “Not yet.”

He flew toward Bruce, and on instinct, the former Jedi brought both blades out in front of him in a thrust. There was a hissing buzz as they sank into the Sith’s chest, and Blonsky was inches from Bruce’s face. A strangled cough escaped his throat, a noise that morphed into a rattling laugh.

“Still a killer,” he spoke in strained tones.

“You knew you’d die,” Bruce said with a shake of his head. He dropped the blades, and they sizzled out as Blonsky collapsed into him. “Why throw your life away?”

“I spent the best years of my life trying to find a beast,” Blonsky breathed. “Without him, what grim joy is left?”

Bruce watched the life flicker out of his eyes, a sight all too familiar after too few years. Standing, he collected the lightsabers and gazed around. Most of the stormtroopers seemed to have realized that the fight had resolved itself and it was time for them to get involved.

They seemed a bit reluctant to do so.

“Target the Jedi!” a voice shouted. “Open fire!”

With twin snapping hisses, Bruce ignited his and Blonsky’s sabers, and a hail of blaster fire fell upon him from below. Spinning and twisting, he managed to dodge most of it, allowing the Force to guide the blades to deflect the few shots that were in danger of connecting. A few stormtroopers found their own bolts flying right back at them, and with the ensuing confusion and the scramble to load new fuel cells, Bruce was able to leap over the side of his wall. He and Blonsky had found their way around the perimeter to where the land gave way to a steep cliff face. Somewhere below—hopefully—Rio had led the others to the small cave that held his speeder.

There was little comfort to be gained from this thought, though, as the howling shriek of TIE fighters roared overhead. A cloud of sand was whipped up, and two of the ships swooped from above and took off over the Dune Sea. Hurrying toward the cliff, Bruce reached into his pocket, withdrawing a communicator and dialing into a familiar frequency.

“Rocket, come in,” he spoke. “Are you inbound? We’re changing the rendezvous point a bit.”

With that, he hurled himself over the side.

……

Gwen knew the sound well. Her whole life, the haunting roar of a TIE fighter overhead had been reassuring to her, a signal that she was safe in the bounds of the Empire and likely attending some ceremony or memorial. Flyovers had been common, and in her younger years, Gwen had even found them thrilling, pointing above with all of the other little children and shouting, “Daddy, look!”

“Look!” Ganke shouted as the speeder zipped along the sand. His voice wasn’t full of childish excitement, however, but dread. Miles followed Ganke’s finger, and his eyes shot wide.

“TIE fighters!” he shouted to Rio, who was piloting the speeder along the rolling dunes and crags.

“Hold on!” Rio called back, and the trio in the backseat braced themselves as she banked hard, steering them toward a nearby canyon. In the passenger seat, Kaysix turned to observe their pursuers, his eyes dilating and blinking a couple of times.

“They will overtake us in thirty-three seconds,” he said in conversational tones.

“How are you with a blaster?” Miles asked Gwen, who turned to him with tiny shrug.

“I-I can fire one well enough, but – “

“Here,” Miles jammed a heavy blaster rifle into her hands, and she balked at how big the thing was. She’d never fired anything heavier than the pistol dad had given her, which she had lost track of in the last eighteen hours. “TIE fighters don’t have shielding, so if we can get a few shots at the cockpit – “

“Incoming!” Ganke shouted behind them, and Gwen felt him pressing between her shoulders, forcing her down into the speeder as wind whipped overhead. The sound of the TIE fighters grew deafening before fading as they sped past.

“That was just sizing us up,” Miles said as the ships began to arc upwards and swoop back in behind them. “They’ll be on us with firepower next time.”

“We’re almost to the canyon!” Rio called back to them. “We can lose them in there.”

“The cockpit is shaped like a target,” Miles assured her. “It’s like they’re designed to be blown to slag.”

Gwen felt a nervous laugh bubble out of her at that. She didn’t have the heart to tell Miles that she had never even shot _at_ someone, and her last attempt had failed miserably. The TIE fighters began to close in again, and Gwen raised the rifle with shaking hands. On her left and right, she heard Miles and Ganke pop off a few shots, but try as she might, she felt her fingers tense up as she tried to squeeze the trigger. Gripping it tight enough to turn her knuckles white, she let a dismayed sound before Miles shouted at her.

“Down!” They hunkered down as a volley of shots rang out from the TIE fighter. The speeder veered sharply while Rio weaved in an attempt to throw off their aim, and then the roar of the fighters grew distant again.

“What were they shooting?” Ganke asked. “Those weren’t their regular cannons.”

“EMP bursts,” Kaysix observed. “They’re attempting to nonlethally disable the vehicle.”

“They don’t wanna hurt the precious cargo,” Miles said with a glance at Gwen, who bit her lip.

“At least I’m good for something,” she said.

“Bad news!” Rio called back, banking away from the canyon, and the three looked ahead to see a TIE fighter zooming right toward them. “They’re cutting us off!”

“How far to Anchorhead?” Miles asked, and Ganke shook his head.

“Too far,” he said.

“Stop the speeder,” Gwen said. “I’ll give myself up, maybe I – “

“No,” Miles cut her off.

“Miles, if I come quietly, they might – “

“We’re not having this discussion,” Ganke said. “We’ll think of something.”

“They’re coming back around!” Rio said.

Behind them, the TIE fighters reengaged them, swooping toward the speeder with an unearthly howl.

_Vweet-vweet-vweet! KOOM!_

Then the one on the left exploded in a shower of parts, the cockpit bursting and leaving the wings to gouge themselves into the sand below.

“What – “

_Vweet-vweet-vweet! Vweet-vweet-vweet!_

The other fighter attempted to roll away to dodge the incoming fire, but it too was blown pieces. Only as it joined its fellow in the sand did a third ship come into view behind it, one much larger.

“Woah,” Miles breathed.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Ganke agreed.

The ship appeared to be a freighter of some sort, though Gwen had never seen one like it. It was roughly the size of a small house and mostly round, though two angular protrusions marked the front and likely lent a small degree of aerodynamic advantage while in a planet’s atmosphere. The cockpit looked to be a small glass dome of sorts, perched on the starboard side of the vessel.

Based on its performance against the TIE fighters, she was also willing to bet it was packed with at least a decent ion cannon.

“What’s the plan?” Ganke asked no one in particular.

“I think it’s less of a plan and more our only option,” Rio said, “but I think they want us to hop on.”

Behind them, the ship was closing in, though it appeared to be slowing to match their speed. As it drew alongside them, a ramp unfolded from its underbelly, and two figures made their way down, clutching to the supports. Gwen could make out a few details, and she gasped, smacking Miles gently on the arm.

“It’s Banner!”

“He made it!” Ganke cheered.

“What’s that with him?” Miles asked.

Next to Banner stood what Gwen could only rationalize was a tree that had been meticulously grown into the approximate shape of a humanoid. The body was comprised of an intricate weave of branches and roots, and it even looked less like it was clutching at one of the ramp’s supports and more like its arm had simply grown around it. Its free limb extended out toward the speeder as the ship matched its speed only meters away from them.

“I am Groot!” the tree-man called to them, and Gwen had time to ponder that it was a strange moment to choose to make an introduction when his arm began to grow towards them. It was like watching an actual tree branch grow in a nature documentary, with a few leaves even sprouting along its length.

“Grab on!” Banner called. “Hurry! There are more TIE fighters!”

There was no time to argue how dangerous such an idea was, not a moment to waste panicking or trying to think of a different plan. Steeling herself, Gwen took a hold of Groot’s arm and let a single scream as he simply whisked her out of the speeder, pulling her onto the ramp and depositing her next to Banner. He kindly helped support her as her shaky legs threatened to give out under her.

It wasn’t even nine in the morning yet.

Groot repeated the process with Ganke, Miles, and (after a moment’s hesitation in which he sent a few more supportive branches along) Kaysix. Rio set the speeder to cruise control and ambled toward the back, holding out her hands to Groot’s waiting branches.

_KOOM!_

“Mom!” Miles shouted as the speeder exploded in a ball of fire. The smoke was whisked away in seconds, and Groot let a growl as he regained his balance. At the end of a precariously swaying branch, Rio clung for dear life, letting a series of gasping sobs as she was deposited onto the ramp.

“I am Groot,” Groot said with relief. His voice sounded creaky, like the groan of tree branches swaying in a high wind, and Gwen had a feeling there was more to what he was actually saying than a simple introduction.

“Get inside,” Banner said, ushering them up the ramp. As Gwen hurried into the dim interior of the ship, she heard the howl of more TIE fighters. Clearly, reinforcements had been sent from orbit. With a pneumatic hiss, the ramp began to close up behind them, leaving them with the insubstantial glow of the ship’s interior lighting to guide their way through a small cargo loading area.

“I am Groot,” Groot told them with a gesture toward the other end of the room, where an open doorway led into a corridor. He seemed to be motioning for them to follow, so Gwen led the way with Miles and Ganke close behind. Rio stayed to collect herself and exchange a few words with Banner while the younger three followed the tree man.

The ship was old, and while a good starship could last decades, this one had been ridden hard in its time. Panels along the corridor were missing, exposing wires and piping that had been hastily repaired and patched together. Tubes and hoses that she couldn’t even begin to guess the function of wended along the rounded passageway that Groot now led them through, which seemed to circle the entire ship. They passed another doorway—though it angled out of sight and didn’t allow them to see much—before emerging into what appeared to be a sizeable parlor of sorts.

“Wow, this place is pretty nice,” Ganke observed. “Is that a dejarik table?”

“I am Groot,” Groot explained.

“…Right.”

The room was the size of the average living area in any home, sporting a gaming table with a wraparound couch, a large circular lounge seat with a speaker protruding from the center, a desk and terminal, and even a small bar counter with a sleeping bunk behind it. Various plasteel crates and barrels were piled into a corner, likely magnetized to the floor to prevent shifting during travel. Whoever owned this ship probably spent a great deal of time in here, judging from the magazines, reading tablets, and writing pads littering the place (as well a few dead branches and leaves). Compared to the scrupulously-maintained Imperial cruisers and dreadnoughts she was used to, the place was an absolute mess, but Gwen was amazed that a ship could feel so homey and lived-in. She had compared its size to a house before, but it truly did feel a bit like a living space more than a vehicle.

They all jolted as an unfamiliar voice spoke through a speaker mounted into the ceiling.

“ _Alright, humies, strap in. Banner, you and your girlfriend’ll have to man the turrets while we get the hyperdrive powered up._ ”

The voice was gruff and male, with an accent that sounded like a dialect of Corellian to Gwen. It had to be the pilot, she guessed.

“C’mon,” Miles said, interrupting her thoughts and pulling her toward the couch around the gaming table. “There are harnesses on the seats.”

They quickly slid onto the couch, Gwen sandwiched between the two boys, and managed to extricate some harnesses from within the seats. In seconds, they were securely fastened down, and not a moment too soon. The ship banked nearly fully sideways, the distant sounds of cannon fire indicating that the TIE fighters had engaged them.

“Game of dejarik?” Ganke asked with a nervous grin, nodding toward the table in front of them. Gwen snickered at the absurdity, shaking her head.

“I have no idea how to even play,” she admitted with a shrug. “One of the troopers on Dad’s ship taught me how once, but I barely remember.”

“I somehow feel this might not be the best time for a refresher,” Miles observed, his voice thin and reedy with anxiety.

“Hopefully this ship stays in one piece long enough to get us where we’re going,” Ganke said. “Thing looks like it’s being held together by glue and willpower.”

“ _I heard that_ ,” the same voice said over the speakers. “ _The_ Falcon’s _not much to look at, but she has it where it counts. Now hold onto your butts._ ”

Gravity seemed to increase for a moment as they left the atmosphere, pressing them down into the seats and making Gwen grateful that she hadn’t had breakfast earlier. Ganke’s face was a bit green next to her, his forehead beady with sweat. On her other side, Miles bore a grim expression, though he managed a feeble smile when he saw Gwen watching him.

“Goodbye Tatooine,” he said by way of explanation, and Gwen realized that they were leaving his home planet behind. Gwen had spent nearly half her life aboard ships and was no stranger to the surface shrinking away below. For Miles, though, the surface was home, was _his_ life. Everything he’d known had come crashing down around him, and now he was being all but forced to leave it behind knowing there was nothing to even come back to.

Without even thinking about it, her hand found his, squeezing it gently and feeling how rough and calloused his fingers were. Her own felt positively dainty by comparison.

“I’m – “

“Don’t say sorry,” Miles cut her off, and she pouted at him. “Seriously. This isn’t your fault. You didn’t choose this any more than we did.”

“Tatooine’s your home,” Gwen insisted softly, and he shook his head.

“Home is Mom and Ganke, Banner…you,” he said. “I have my home right here.”

“You’re gonna make me cry,” Gwen huffed, her voice sounding thick and throaty already. Miles smiled wanly at her, giving her hand a little squeeze.

“ _We’ve reached cruising altitude,_ ” the pilot’s voice said over their heads. “ _You can look around, but don’t go through my stuff._ ”

“We are being pursued by quite a lot of TIE fighters and an _Arquitens_ -class command cruiser,” Kaysix’s voice said, and the droid strode into the lounge to peer down at the trio. “If the fighters disable us long enough for the cruiser to bring us in range of the tractor beams, the Empire will likely do horrible things to all of us.”

“Thank you, Kaysix,” Gwen said briskly.

Now that they were in space and under the effects of the ship’s artificial gravity generator, the pitched battle no doubt happening outside had almost no effect on them, barring some particularly sudden maneuvers pulled by the captain that were too drastic for the gravitational compensators to work with. Thus, as Gwen and the others milled about the room, they did so with only the occasional wobble of the floor underfoot.

“I feel like we should be doing something,” Miles said.

“What _could_ we do?” Ganke asked. “We don’t know how to fire a turret, and I don’t even know what kind of ship this _is_.”

“A YT-1300fp light freighter,” Kaysix told them. “Though it seems to have undergone extensive modification since its purchase. The bar is certainly not standard, though I understand a great number of smugglers enjoy imbibing alcoholic beverages.”

“Oh, wait,” Gwen said, pausing during her perusal of the magazines littering the round lounge sofa. “I’ve read about these ships. They’re really popular with freelance spacers and…well, smugglers. I did a report on hyperlanes for my tutor and got stuck down a rabbit-hole on Galactipedia. I ended up learning a lot about old freight ships and…lost planets.”

Noticing the two boys looking at her with evident amusement, she felt her face heat up and studiously avoided eye contact.

“I’m really, really tired,” she explained.

“Well, we’ll probably be jumping to hyperspace in a few minutes,” Ganke said.

“If we aren’t captured by the Empire and subjected to horrible things,” Miles added with a glance at Kaysix, who nodded appreciatively.

“He is correct.”

“No one’s getting captured by the Empire,” Banner said as he strode into the lounge. He’d discarded his farming jacket, leaving a short-sleeve white shirt underneath and giving anyone who cared to examine him closely a view of some rather impressive muscles. Like Dad, he’d grown a bit of a tummy in his age—Gwen approximated him at his mid-to-late forties—but he’d stayed in shape otherwise. The life of a farmer had been kind to him.

“I haven’t fired a laser turret in years,” Rio smiled, making her way in behind Banner and looking quite pleased with herself. “Since we set up shop and had to scare off Tusken raiders every few nights, remember?”

“How could I forget?” Banner said with a small roll of his eyes, though he wore a smile that looked positively boyish as he gave Rio a fondly playful punch in the shoulder. “Still the better shot.”

“Yeah, okay, everyone’s happy and whatever,” a familiar voice spoke, and Rio and Banner parted to allow the ship’s captain to enter the room.

It was a raccoon.

He was taller than the average racoon (Gwen assumed; she’d never seen one before), though he was still only about a meter and half high. Despite this fact, he stood with such confidence (on his hindquarters, no less) that he felt like the tallest one in the room. He took in the sight of the younger three, and while his triangular face wasn’t that expressive, Gwen could tell he wasn’t terribly impressed with what he saw.

“They’re toilet-trained, right?” he asked Banner.

“Of course we are!” Miles insisted with indignation. “We’re teenagers, not toddlers.”

“Alright, Curly-Top, don’t get your undies in a twist,” the raccoon said. “I don’t deal with humies very much, I don’t know ages.”

“I am Groot,” Groot said from the doorway.

“Alright, get cracking on the gyroscopic stabilizer,” the raccoon told him. “I felt some wobble when I banked back on the sandpit. I’ll be along to help.”

“I’m Groot,” Groot told him with a nod before ambling back down the corridor.

“Is that seriously all he can say?” Ganke asked, and Rocket gave him a puzzled look.

“Whatta you mean? He’s saying plenty. You’re just not listening right.”

“W—okay,” Ganke shrugged, clearly too tired to argue with a raccoon about his tree’s vocabulary choices.

“Gwen, Miles, Ganke, this is Rocket,” Banner told them. “We’re on his ship, the Millennium Falcon.”

“Say a word about the name, you’re out the airlock,” Rocket told them.

“I like it,” Miles said.

“It’s a great name,” Gwen agreed. Rocket grinned at them, though it had a feral edge to it.

“Right, listen, Brucie knows his way around, so he can show you to your bunks,” he said. “Don’t get too comfortable. Once I drop you at Alderaan, we’ll never see each other again, and I for one am looking forward to it. Bruce, as always, great to see your credits.”

With that, Rocket left after Groot, presumably to tinker with something in the guts of his ship. He left a ringing silence in his wake, which Ganke broke with a single-word question.

“Brucie?”

“My name is Bruce,” Banner explained, falling into a seat at the dejarik table. Rio took to the bar, pouring herself and Banner a small measure of some amber liquid Gwen couldn’t identify. “But the less people knew my name, the better. The only reason my last name got out is because I was careless when I first got to Tatooine.”

“After leaving the Jedi Order,” Miles said, folding his arms and looking crossly at his boss. For the first time, Gwen realized that Banner’s secret identity wasn’t nearly as shocking to her as it likely was to Miles and Ganke, who he’d known all their lives.

“Don’t give me that look,” Banner said, pointing a stern finger at Miles. He accepted a drink from Rio, who settled into a seat next to him. “All things considered, I felt it best to keep that part of my life a secret. Besides, I’d already left the Jedi Order some time before the Purge.”

“Wait, you…left the Jedi?” Gwen asked him. “They let you do that?”

“Of course,” Banner told her before taking a sip of his drink. “Not many did, mind you. If you left the Order, you left behind access to all of their resources, their information, all of the knowledge in the Jedi Archives. You were, in their eyes, nothing more than a citizen of the Republic and treated as such. If you wanted to learn the ways of the Force, you’d have to learn elsewhere, and such a path was…difficult.”

“So most stuck it out even if they disagreed with the rules,” Miles concluded, “like not having families or attachments.”

“Or they kept their families and attachments a secret,” Gwen huffed.

“Like your mother,” Banner nodded. “Yes. It wasn’t uncommon for a Jedi to fall in love. We liked to pretend ourselves above our emotions, but love is powerful. It’s more than a simple emotion it’s…a pull. Like gravity.”

“Did _you_ ever – “

“Once,” Banner cut Gwen off, a stony look in his eyes. “A very long time ago.”

Well, _that_ subject was hands-off.

“Where are we going?” Miles asked after a brief uncomfortable silence.

“Alderaan,” Bruce said, sipping at his drink again. He must have read the expression on Gwen’s face, because he smiled ruefully. “Not _just_ for you, but that’s part of it. I’m not exactly part of the Rebellion, but we keep in touch. My contact hasn’t checked in recently, and I’m…concerned.”

“Where does your contact live?” Gwen asked, and Bruce let a small laugh at that.

“Delaney,” he answered.

“Wait…really?” Gwen asked him. “That’s…a really huge coincidence.”

“There are no coincidences,” Bruce told her, “only the will of the Force.”

“Well, that’s a really huge will of the Force, then,” Gwen shot back.

“I suppose it is,” Bruce admitted. “In any case, we’ll be in hyperspace for a few hours, so why don’t you all clean up and get some breakfast? It’s been a hectic morning.”

“What’s the plan after Alderaan?” Miles asked.

“That’s what we’ll find out when we get there,” Bruce said, his expression thoughtful. “I sense a…shift in the Force. A great change is coming to the galaxy, and Alderaan is the epicenter.”

“Does this shift in the Force have anything to do with us?” Gwen asked, and Banner smirked up at her. “Actually, don’t answer that.”

“Eat,” Banner said. “You’ll need your strength.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

……

“Lord Vader on deck!”

“At ease, no need for a ceremony every time I walk into a room,” Vader said as he strode onto the bridge of the _Iron Will_. Making his way across the catwalk, he spared a glance at the crew working in the lower consoles, tapping at screens and studiously avoiding eye contact. Of course, with his helmet and mask on, eye contact wasn’t an issue he had to deal with.

Darth Vader didn’t suffer any notions of camaraderie with his subordinates.

“Lord Vader, Lieutenant Appo reporting from Tatooine,” a stormtrooper informed him once he’d reached the small platform overlooking the transparisteel viewport that spanned the whole bridge. Behind the trooper, a life-size hologram of Lieutenant Appo sprung to a crisp salute.

“Lieutenant Appo, where is the commander?” Vader asked, his suit’s vocal processors giving his voice an uncanny mechanical flange. He enjoyed the intimidating effect it had on most of the people he spoke to. Stories of Darth Vader’s formidable abilities with the Force and coldly efficient methods did a well enough job of setting the stage, but that was all for naught if he showed up looking like any businessman in a suit.

He wore a suit, certainly, just not the sort your average Coruscant CEO slipped into before a day at the office.

“Lord Vader,” Appo began, “I regret to inform you that Commander Cody was critically injured during a skirmish at the Banner Plantation and is on his way to the _Silver Centurion_ ’s medbay. Emil Blonsky was killed, and Bruce Banner escaped with the Stacy girl.”

“So,” Vader concluded in a steady voice, “everything that could have gone wrong has done so.”

“Sir, I’m…afraid so,” Appo affirmed regretfully. “I believe Banner knew we were trying to take the girl alive and used that against us.”

“Where are they now?” Vader asked.

“They escaped in an unknown ship, a YT-1300 freighter,” Appo said. “We’ve got every dock on the lookout. If they’re foolish enough to land in Imperial space, we’ll know before they’ve even made the surface.”

“But they’re very likely not so foolish,” Vader said, and Appo nodded.

“I’d like to personally apologize, sir,” he said. “With Cody out of commission, command of the mission fell to me. As acting field commander, I failed to achieve our objective.”

“Lucky for you, now’s not the time to point fingers at anyone,” Vader told him. “The girl is at large, and the longer she stays so, the harder it will be for us to eventually find her. I’m pulling you guys out of Tatooine and resuming normal operations on the surface.”

“Where to, Lord Vader?” Appo asked.

“I want you and Cody to report to Alderaan,” he said. “JARVIS will get you where you need to go.”

“Another mission, sir?” Appo inquired.

“Possibly the _most_ important mission,” Vader said. “Are you ready?”

Again, Appo saluted with all the pride and decorum that only a clone trooper could muster.

“I was literally born ready, Lord Vader.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Vader told him. “Vader out.”

The hologram flickered out of existence, leaving Vader with an unobstructed view of Alderaan below, quiet and empty save for a single outpost on the surface. The capital city of Aldera was being demolished, the dramatic and ostentatious architecture crumbling like the façade it was to pave the way for the next phase of his plans. Obviously, a space station wasn’t going to be enough to contain the raw power of his weapon. This first test-fire had told him a lot, but foremost was the fact that continued use under the current parameters would eat Imperial resources.

He needed to go back to hardware mode.

And he knew just who to get into contact with for such an endeavor.

“Grand Moff on deck!”

Ross made his way across the catwalk, pausing at Vader's side to follow his gaze down to the planet below.

“The news from Tatooine?” he asked without preamble.

“Not especially good,” Vader said. “In fact, quite the opposite.”

“You seem rather calm,” Ross observed. “I suppose you have a plan?”

“I _always_ have a plan,” Vader pointed out. “Right now, I have several of them, all running in tandem.”

“Which one are we on right now?” Ross asked him.

“The one that involves sending an envoy to some very special friends of mine in the Yggdrasil Galaxy,” Vader said. “I’m dreaming of something big, the kind of weapon you shouldn’t have to fire because no one in their right mind would dare look at it and think they had a chance at victory.”

“Now you’re talking my language,” Ross said with a grim smile.

“JARVIS, have the Erwins brought in,” Vader said. “Where exactly are they?”

“ _Morley and Clytemnestra Erwin are currently in a location you don’t wish spoken of in mixed company_ ,” JARVIS said. “ _It will take approximately sixteen hours for them to arrive_.”

“Get on it,” Vader said.

“ _At once, sir,_ ” JARVIS replied. “ _Also, the_ Sentinel _is scheduled to emerge from hyperspace in nine and a half minutes_.”

“Is Special Forces on standby?” Vader asked while Ross perked up with apparent interest.

“ _The_ Indomitable _is awaiting your command_ ,” JARVIS said.

“Tell them I want every weapon they have at the ready,” Vader said. “They are to engage as soon as they’re able and fire until there isn’t a piece left the size of a speeder bike.”

“ _Absolutely, my lord_ ,” JARVIS said.

“Are we feeling particularly sadistic today?” Ross asked him dryly, and Vader spared the Grand Moff a glance.

“I recently learned who exactly it was that took the _Sentinel_ ,” he said. “A pirate who goes by the name Captain Phasma.”

“I’ve heard of Phasma,” Ross said. “He’s a pretty big name in the Outer Rim. It’s not like him to go after Imperial ships, though. That’s a daring move.”

“It’s suicide,” Vader said. “It’s not the kind of thing one does unless one’s trying to send a message.”

“What message?” Ross asked. “And to whom?”

“Those are two very excellent questions,” Vader said, though he offered no further elaboration on the issue. “JARVIS, while we wait, I’d like Commander Cody and Lieutenant Appo’s helmet cam footage compiled for later.”

“ _At once, Lord Vader_ ,” JARVIS said.

“Now, Grand Moff, let’s make an example, shall we?”

……

“No, like…five seconds after they came out of hyperspace, this freighter just blew them to bits!” Riri said with a look of wide-eyed shock as Viz rolled along next to her. “Like…some random cargo freighter!”

“Probably an Imperial Special Forces ship in disguise,” George said with a covert glance around the bazaar. A few seedy-looking spacers were giving Riri overly-interested looks, to which the young girl was completely oblivious. George had a suspicion not all of them were pondering a moonlit stroll with her, either. “They do that a lot when they want to work in areas where the Empire’s hold is…tenuous.”

“You mean where the Syndicate are running the show?” Riri smirked, waving a hand in front of her face as a plume of smoke issued from a nearby food stall. It seemed to be the intent of the cook, however, as a chorus of pleased mutterings went up before he began piling slabs of blackened meat onto nearly a dozen plates at once, assisted by some sort of multi-armed droid fashioned from spare parts.

That seemed to be the name of the game on Boonta. Spare parts, scrap metal, and secondhand-but-functional, all for the right price. George didn’t see a single vehicle, weapon, or device for sale that still had all of its original parts; in fact, most everything had been repaired so many times with so many different substitutions and alterations that the original state was a mystery for the ages.

There was a metaphor in there about the state of galaxy, but George wasn’t poetic enough to reach it.

“So…” Riri began but trailed off. George looked down to see her lips pressed together in a thin line, her eyes averted downward.

“Whatever you want to ask, I won’t get upset,” he assured her, unable to stop a grin as she looked at him in shock.

“How did you…?”

“I have a daughter,” George told her. “A bit younger than you, but I know all the faces.”

“What’s her name?” Riri asked, meeting his eyes once more.

“Gwen,” George told her. “My Gwendy.”

Her lips pulled into a wide smile at that, causing her wide eyes to squint just a bit.

“You love her,” she said.

“More than anything,” George nodded. “Which is why this detour is a bit…distressing. We could be on the way back to Tatooine by now.”

“We don’t know what kind of resistance we’ll be running into along the way, and the _Eclector_ looks like someone found it in a scrapyard and just flew it out without even one systems check,” Riri told him. “Maybe that worked for Captain Phasma and his crew of nutjobs, but I’d like to at least make sure the power core won’t overload and leave us dead in space.”

“Fair enough,” George admitted before prompting her. “’So…’?”

“So…what are you doing working for the Empire?” she asked, the words seeming to spill forth. “Growing up, Imperials were these…heartless monsters who worship the Eisenhardts and lick Vader’s boots and… You just seem really normal. I mean, you’re actually kind of a cool guy, in a ‘Dad’ way.”

“I’m flattered,” George smirked, and Riri stuck her tongue out at him.

“But why – “

“Because I chose to put the needs of _my_ world before _the_ world,” George said.

“Your daughter,” Riri said softly. George slowed to a stop as they left the bazaar behind, and Riri paused next to him, stuffing her hands in the pockets of a flight jacket she’d procured from the ship’s armory. George, likewise, had dispensed of his Imperial uniform for a simpler mechanic’s jumpsuit, so the pair looked like nothing more than a pair of scrappers searching for parts to repair their aging ship.

It helped that that was exactly what they were, for the moment.

The rolling plains of Boonta sprawled before them, echoing with the distant hum of pod racers, swoop bikes, and various animals being pushed to their limit. If Boonta was fond of scrap and the disused, it was in love with racing in all forms; the whole planet was dotted with massive racing compounds, each one the economic hub of a complex shantytown that had sprung up around it. The cesspool that they were gracing with their presence was called Modok, named for the Hutt that ran the place. It wasn’t a place George would have ever visited by his own volition, but a shop on the outskirts had a few hunks of guerrerite, a metal that Riri insisted would be necessary to patch their power source properly. She had secured a deal for them in exchange for a few weapons from the armory, and George was escorting her and her droid while the rest of the crew worked on some necessary repairs in orbit.

“I was a member of the Republic Navy,” George finally spoke after a pregnant silence. “One day, just another day at the office, we’re talking about weekend plans. Get the grill out, cook up some sausages, celebrate the end of the war. It was around the corner—we all knew it. Suddenly, the clone troopers come in, tell us all that the Jedi have been exterminated, the Republic is now the Galactic Empire, and that Maximus Eisenhardt is running everything. A friend of mine, Frank Nelson—never knew when to keep his mouth shut. He starts asking questions, telling the troopers that Eisenhardt had no right to seize total control of the government without due process, without a senate hearing.”

“He was right, though,” Riri insisted. “Max Eisenhardt _had_ no right. He just decided to exterminate every Jedi based on groundless suspicions, and he _definitely_ was out of line in taking over the whole government. Your guy Frank – “

“Was taken outside and executed,” George said, “leaving behind a wife and unborn child. She eventually left Alderaan, under very mysterious circumstances.”

“…Oh.”

“I was all Gwen had left,” George said. “If I’d said anything besides ‘Yes, sir’ that day, I’d have been in the dirt right next to Frank, and she would’ve been taken to an Imperial orphanage.”

“But the Rebellion…”

“The Rebellion wasn’t around yet, and in any case, it’s not the kind of environment suitable for raising a daughter,” George said. “Too many variables, too much could go wrong. I could zip off on some mission, and she’d never see me again. Or worse, the Empire could find them and blast the whole continent from orbit.”

“So, you chose security in the arms of the bad guys,” Riri observed.

“I chose security for my _daughter_ ,” George insisted. “I did what I did to keep her safe and secure, to ensure that the Empire would leave us be as long as we marched to their drum. It was…cowardly, not my proudest moment. But it was the only option I had.”

“There’s always another option,” Riri said.

“Maybe,” George nodded grimly, “but there was only one option _I_ had.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one refused to come out of my head, and I was also modifying/fleshing out key plot details while writing it and had to make a few changes to my plans. Hopefully, things will progress more smoothly from here on out.

Outside of the racing city of Modok—poised near a massive valley that had been filled to the brim with old starfighters, shuttles, and freighters in various states of disrepair—sat the destination Riri had been given by her contact on Boonta. As soon as the _Eclector_ had come out of hyperspace, she’d hit the holonet and tracked down one of the only people on the planet with guerrerite for sale at a reasonable price, a human man working out of a sandcrawler next to a place known as Scrap Canyon. While the power core in the ship was definitely more suited to a luxury cruiser (the sort of outfit with thousands of guest bays and amenities that were kept running near-constantly), it could be made to work with a simpler bulk freighter if one only had a properly-rated regulator and a few heavy-duty battery cells. Fixing that up would require a fair amount of guerrerite, however, as the wiring had to be able to double-cycle the power.

She’d tried explaining this to George, who had simply shaken his head, throwing his hands up and promising to escort her where she needed to go as long as she didn’t expect him to actually comprehend why. It was sort of charming. Imperial or not, she rather liked the guy. He had a stern, no-nonsense air to him, but underneath that was a warmth and compassion so rare among members of the Imperial military. It was obvious to Riri that the single most important thing to the man was his daughter, and he would fight the galaxy to keep her safe. She only hoped this girl Gwen knew how lucky she was.

As they stepped over a rocky ridge, a massive silhouette came into view, perched near an outcropping over the valley, with a set of tread tracks winding away from it and into the distance.

“Is that the place?” George asked.

Riri had seen a sandcrawler once before (during a short but memorable stay on Arvala-7) but it was easy to forget how vast they were. A warehouse on tank treads, the main body was a mostly featureless brown box, with a jutting rhombus the only indication of what the front was supposed to be. The bottom part of the rhombus folded down into a massive ramp, allowing cargo of any size—from a droid to a small starfighter—to be brought onboard for breakdown. The mere sight of the thing made Riri giddy; terrestrial vehicles were a secret passion of hers, and the fact that one so very big not only existed but had once been mass-produced and used by mining corporations was utterly fascinating.

“This is what I wanna do someday,” she told George.

“Sell scrap out of a sandcrawler?” he asked her dubiously.

“Yes,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “To just…find a planet, settle down, and live by myself.”

“A-a-all alone?” Viz’s voice piped up as he rolled along next to her.

“Of course you can come along too, Viz,” Riri told him, and the little astromech gave a smug spin of his head.

“So, what do you do now?” George asked while they closed the distance between them and the crawler. “What line of work had you crossing paths with Captain Phasma?”

Riri hesitated to tell him for a moment, peering sidelong up at him (he was so tall!) and watching him staring ahead at the sandcrawler.

“I’m…with a guild,” she told him. “So I do a lot of traveling.”

“The Rebellion is a guild now?” George asked her, and she rolled her eyes. Of course he would have figured it out; she hadn’t exactly been subtle, and he was most definitely intuitive enough.

“You are infuriating,” she told him.

“I’m a dad,” he shot back.

“Same difference,” she insisted. “So…you don’t care about working with the enemy?”

“As long as you help me track down my daughter, I see no reason we have to be enemies,” George told her. “Deal?”

“…Deal,” Riri smirked.

They made their way up the large ramp, where a storefront of sorts had been set up in the opening to the cavernous cargo bay. Inside, Riri could see racks upon racks of various components and droids, some in states of utter disrepair while others had been cleaned up like new and were obviously for sale. Halfway up the ramp, a figure emerged from the interior, ambling down toward them with a gait that suggested that it was a protocol droid.

“Greetings,” it spoke as it paused before them. “I am TO-1, assistant to Mr. Mason. Welcome to the Tinkerer’s Workshop. Are you here to browse or do you have an appointment?”

“I spoke to Mr. Mason earlier today on the holocomm?” Riri told the droid. “Riri Williams?”

The droid twitched briefly before giving a nod and gesturing behind him.

“Right this way, please,” he said. “My master is expecting you.”

TO-1 led them up the ramp, past a few tables strewn with spare parts and circuitry, and into the belly of the sandcrawler. The walls loomed high around them, hung with more droids and stacked with shelves of inventory, and as they picked their way toward this Tinkerer, they had to wend their way around a number of workstations and terminals.

The Tinkerer was certainly eclectic in his interests.

“Master Phineas,” TO-1 said, stopping once they had reached a long counter along the back wall and bowing to the man that awaited them. “Riri Williams to see you.”

Phineas Mason spun on a stool to face the new arrivals, regarding them with utter disinterest. Despite the fact that he sat upon a rather high stool, the self-styled Tinkerer was still only about eye level with Riri (who was admittedly slightly taller than average), and she had no doubt that he likely only came to about her shoulders. His short stature was only compounded by his narrow frame, which caused his balding head to look just a bit too large for the rest of him.

“Did you bring them?” he asked in a dry, reedy voice. Riri thought for a moment that he was staring her down—possibly out of suspicion of her motives—but once she slid her backpack from her shoulders and produced a metal case for him, she realized that his eyes were just very small and narrow, as they took in the sight of her payment with the same intensity even as he gave a thin-lipped smile.

“Two BlasTech DL-44s, genuine article,” Riri said, opening the case to show him and quickly shutting it. “The guerrerite?”

“Well, Riri Williams, I have a different proposition,” Phineas said, his humorless smile widening. “You give me those blasters, along with every credit you have, and instead of killing you on the spot, I detain you and call the Empire down here to take you alive.”

Riri felt a chill run down her spine, and George tensed near her.

“What do you – “

“I don’t feel it’s bragging to say that I’m a fairly intelligent man,” Phineas told them. “I have the means to listen in on a number of frequencies and channels I’m not supposed to, and I pick up quite a bit of chatter. One of them had a _lot_ to say about you and some business on Geonosis.”

Cold claws squeezed at her heart, and Riri clenched her jaw as she stared down the smug grin on Phineas’s face.

“Is _that_ what this is about?” she asked. “Are you planning to build your own – “

“Oh, I’m not planning to build anything,” Phineas said, and Riri folded her arms over her chest, giving her foot three solid taps and then a fourth after a slight pause. Viz whirred quietly next to her, silently sending a signal. “This isn’t about any sort of ambition or any measure of loyalty to the Empire. It’s about a payday, plain and simple. They’re willing to spend a _fortune_ to get their hands on you. Those plans must be impressive.”

“Riri,” George said in a voice that was level though expectant. “I’d like to know what’s going on.”

“You mean he doesn’t know?” Phineas asked in an irritatingly condescending tone. “The hired muscle, then? Paid to be a tough-looking escort but not ask questions? You don’t know the trouble you’re getting into.”

“And what trouble is – “

_KOOM!_

Abruptly, the room around them was thrown into bedlam, the deafening sound of a wholly unnecessary breaching charge followed by an absolute barrage of blaster fire echoing insanely off of the confines of Phineas’s makeshift workshop. Mingling with the din of battle was a chorus of voices.

“SAVE GENERAL RIRI!”

“FAN OUT AND FIND THE GENERAL.”

“ROGER ROGER.”

“WHO PLACED THE BREACHING CHARGE!? I DID NOT AUTHORIZE – “

“LIEUTENANT. GENERAL RIRI LOCATED!”

When things had settled, Phineas’s workshop now resembled the canyon full of scrap outside, and he himself was being held at blaster point by several B1s, B2s, a destroyer, and one of his own mercenary droids that had apparently gone rogue at the display of military prowess. As they carted him away to be detained, Riri almost felt a stab of sympathy for the man.

Almost.

Standing amidst the wreckage were a platoon of battle droids, dispatched specifically to keep track of the shuttle that had conveyed them to the surface. Of course, Riri had also left them with instructions to follow her tracking signal and locate her should she send out a distress beacon.

They had done so with enthusiasm, it seemed.

“Where’s the lieutenant?” Riri asked, and a B1 made his way forward. The other droids of this particular platoon had all added blue accents to their paint jobs, but the lieutenant had gone even further and painted gold along with it. He saluted crisply and stood at attention.

“GENERAL RIRI, I HOPE THAT WE HAVE DONE A SATISFACTORY JOB.”

“Aside from the breaching charge, not bad.”

“DISCIPLINARY ACTION WILL BE TAKEN,” the lieutenant said with a look over his shoulder. One particular B2 cowered a bit at his gaze, and the droids around him shifted nervously away.

“We should locate the geurrerite and leave,” George said. “The Empire’s likely on the way as we speak, and they have a lot of reasons to to detain us both for some stern questioning.”

“We need that guerrerite,” Riri said, turning to the Tinkerer. “Where is it?”

“You must be joking,” he said flatly.

“Viz,” Riri said, turning to the astromech. “Can you scan for it?”

“C-c-can do, boss!” Viz spoke. His head spun to regard the other droids as he rolled away. “Soldiers, clear a path.”

“ROGER ROGER, LIEUTEANT-GENERAL.”

While the hodgepodge astromech looked around, George made his way toward the mouth of the warehouse, staring up at the sky as though expecting the Empire to swoop down at any moment to collect them. Riri wasn’t overly concerned; a planet like Boonta had such minimal Imperial presence, it would take hours for any measurable force to arrive. George didn’t seem willing to take any chances, however, as he flagged down the nearest droid (all of whom had been instructed to treat him Lieutenant General) and began calmly giving orders.

“Prep the shuttle for immediate evac and radio the _Eclector_ to power up the hyperdrive, destination – “

“Seelos,” Riri said, and George gave her a look. “It’s not far, and we need to fix up the ship before we can make a big jump.”

“Is there a Rebellion presence on Seelos?” George asked her. “One that would be interested in plans for some secret Imperial weapon?”

“Is this gonna be an issue?” Riri asked with a small sigh. “George, they’re _evil_. Okay? Your bosses, your commanders, the people you work for are plain _evil_. I was on Geonosis looking for plans for a weapon that Darth Vader was planning to use to wipe out entire _planets_. Boom, in a single blast. That’s what it’s come to. He wants to be able to kill billions of people with the push a button.”

“He can’t possibly – “

“He _can_ , George,” Riri implored him. “It’s possible he already _has_. This isn’t about how a bunch of people think a government should run versus how other people think. It’s…a lot of people, dying because he points his finger at a planet and says he doesn’t like it.”

George peered down at her for a long moment, folding his arms over his chest. He was stubborn, willful, the type of person not swayed by words alone. Normally, they were qualities that Riri admired in a person, but such things could work against her now. Whatever he saw in her expression, though, must have been genuine, because he sighed and leaned against one of the tables still left upright after the commotion.

“How does it work?”

“We’re not sure,” Riri said. “That’s why we were looking for the plans. No power source that we know of could generate enough energy to even come close to wiping out an entire planet, but all of our intelligence suggests that Vader has total confidence in this thing. And Vader never bets on anything but a sure thing.”

“And the plan to stop it?”

“That’s what we needed the plans for,” Riri explained. “I haven’t got a good look at them yet, but at a glance, the schematics show that the entire base functions off a single power source. If we can get in there and take it, I bet the whole thing goes dark.”

“What’s to stop him from getting another power source?” George asked her.

“From what I’ve been able to gather, and I’ll admit it’s fuzzy info,” Riri admitted, “this is a one-of-a-kind power source. He didn’t create it, he _found_ it. I don’t know what it is or where he got it, but if we can get it, we set him back years, maybe for good.”

“And then that power source can be used to give the Rebellion a leg-up,” George concluded.

“Yes,” Riri said. “We could end the Empire, put things back the way they were, make this right again. You wouldn’t have to hide your daughter, and she could have a chance at a peaceful life.”

A wry smile twisted his lips at that, but he only shrugged.

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“So…are you in?”

“Would I like to join the Rebellion?” George asked with a thoughtful look. “I suppose, at this point, I’m already an honorary member, aren’t I?”

“Exactly,” Riri smiled. Over their heads, a rumbling rushing sound shook the floor under their feet as a shuttle swooped in. “So, we have a galaxy to save, right?”

“…Alright, let’s go.”

……

_In her dream, Gwen was back on Alderaan, at a street fair down the main drag of Delaney. Every year, on the last day of summer, High Street was filled with food stalls, games, petting zoos—all of the things any kid needed to cheer themselves up with school lurking just around the corner. Dad was there, looming as tall as she remembered him from her childhood. His hand engulfed hers, but his grip was gentle as he led her along the street. Despite his insistent guidance, the streets were empty and silent, and an eerie purple glow suffused the evening._

_“Dad?” she asked, her voice a hollow echo that was swallowed up by the quiet around them. “What’s going on?”_

_“Just stay with me, Gwen,” Dad spoke, his hand tightening around hers._

_“But…” Gwen felt a strange sense of misgiving, looking around at the oppressively empty fair, so completely devoid of life. Some of the food stalls were still smoking, several of the games spinning and tinkering away. It was like the whole place had been suddenly and instantly abandoned, and that made it all the more vexing that they were still there, still walking through the haunting purple glow._

_“Gwen!” a voice hissed nearby, and Gwen turned her head to see Miles and Ganke ducked down between two vendors. “Gwen, this way! C’mon!”_

_In the moment’s hesitation she experienced at the sight, Gwen felt Dad’s hand tug at her, pulling her inexorably forward._

_“Dad, wait!” she called, but he wouldn’t even look back at her. “Dad!”_

_“Gwen, you have to stay with me,” he said._

_“Gwen!” Miles’s voice shouted behind her, and she turned to see him frantically gesturing for her to join them. “We have to go!”_

_Suddenly, her hand dropped to her side, and when she looked forward, Dad was gone. She was alone, surrounded by an endless maze._

_“Dad?” she called. “DAD!?”_

_“Gwen!” Miles called once more, but fear clutched at her, holding her in place. What if Dad came back? He’d never be able to find her if she ran off with Miles and Ganke. Would it be better to stay where she was and wait for him to come back?_

_“GWEN!” Miles shouted, his voice now frantic. Gwen’s knees shook as she warred with herself, but even as she agonized, the light around her grew brighter and brighter, washing everything in purple and blinding her until she was blinking against it._

And then her eyes opened to take in the roof of her bunk. Around her, the _Millennium Falcon_ hummed along, the noise of the engines surprisingly smooth despite the ship’s rather ramshackle appearance. Rolling onto her side, Gwen was prepared to burrow back into her blanket and try to grab another hour or so of sleep (Alderaan was quite a trip even at lightspeed), but she jolted and nearly cracked her head when she saw that she was being watched.

“I am Groot.”

In the semidarkness of the ship’s guest bunkroom, Groot the tree-man had apparently come calling for Gwen. His warm smile looked carved into his face, and his eyes gleamed yellow from deep within.

In the gloom of the dimly-lit room, the sight was singularly unnerving.

“Um…hey, Groot.”

“I’m Groot.”

“Does…Bruce need to see me or something?”

“I am Groot.”

“He was worried about you,” Rocket’s voice said, and the raccoon himself came striding in. He switched the lights on, blinding Gwen for a moment as he spoke. “I told him he’d just freak you out even more, but he wouldn’t listen. He’s got a soft spot for you Jedi types.”

“How did you – “

“Bruce told us,” Rocket said. As Gwen’s vision adjusted to the sudden change in lighting, she saw him peering curiously up at her while he adjusted his flight jacket. For a brief moment as she sat up, Gwen entertained herself imagining where he got his clothes. Being a one-of-a-kind creature (most likely—Gwen hadn’t exactly met many sentient raccoons), he was unlikely to be able to shop at the average Coruscant mega-mall. Was there a specialty tailor, a place that catered to anomalies like him, or did he make his own clothes?

“Are you two with the Rebellion?” she asked, deciding to forego any talk about his apparel in light of more pressing matters.

“We go where the money takes us,” Rocket said. “As it happens, the Empire doesn’t really appreciate our line of work, so yeah, we pick up the occasional Rebellion contract, but we don’t get behind causes.”

“Well…thank you for saving us anyway,” Gwen told him.

“I am Groot,” Groot spoke, nudging Rocket’s shoulder.

“ _You_ ask her,” Rocket shot back at the tree.

“I’m _Groot_.”

“Well, that’s not really my problem, is it?”

“What’s he saying?” Gwen asked, unable to fight a smile at the exchange.

“He wants to know what your nightmare was about,” Rocket sighed, placing a paw to his face. “He knows Jedi can have some spooky dreams sometimes.”

“Oh, um…” Gwen shivered a bit as she recalled her dream. Feeling a bit silly, she recounted the details to the captain and his tree companion. She’d had one brief conversation with Rocket (who’d made it clear that that had already been pushing his capacity for “chatter”), but here he was, feigning polite interest while Groot listened intently.

“Sounds intense,” Rocket observed.

“It felt so real,” Gwen said, pleased to be talking about it despite her audience. “I don’t…really get what it means, though.”

“Eh, just stress,” Rocket said with a dismissive shrug. “Drinkin’ too mucha that vaporator water from Brucie’s place. Sometimes dreams are just dreams.”

“Not for a Jedi,” Bruce said as he strode in. “And I don’t appreciate what you’re insinuating about my vaporators.”

“I’m just saying, Tatooine’s a big ball of crazy, and you wanna drink the _air_?” Rocket said.

“Rio needs help working the galley,” Bruce said with a gesture toward the door. “Would you mind?”

“Nah, I’d rather stay and talk about _dreams_ ,” Rocket said with a sardonic smile, turning to leave. “C’mon, Groot.”

“I am Groot.”

“She can’t understand a word you’re saying anyway.”

“I’m Groot?”

“A nightlight? Where the blazes are you gonna find a nightlight?”

Their argument faded off down the hallway as they left Gwen with Bruce. He was dressed in simple pants and a coat over a black shirt, and Gwen could see two lightsabers clipped to his belt. Gone was the simple farmer from Tatooine, and in his place was a former Jedi who clearly still had some moves.

“I couldn’t help but overhear,” he confessed, nodding back to where the pair had left. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Gwen said with a shrug. “Just…bad dreams.”

“You wanna talk about it?” he asked. Looking around, he pulled over an old storage crate, turning it over and sitting on it. “I’m sure there’s a lot you wanna talk about.”

“Well,” Gwen sighed, “I guess I want to apologize for…being kind of mean to you. I was just freaking out, I guess. I still _am_.”

“No one’s gonna blame you for freaking out,” Bruce assured her. “Why do you think the Jedi like to start training as young as possible? You tell a kid she has to deal with puberty _and_ the Force?”

Gwen giggled a bit at that, and Bruce smirked at her before leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. Gwen knew the shift if in posture well. It was the same pose Dad adopted when he knew he was delivering unwelcome news. This was a bit more dire, she suspected, than a training drill on N’Zoth or a months-long guard detail over Bracca.

“Listen,” he said. “I know you’re afraid. You’re afraid of getting involved in this because every step forward is a step away from your dad and your old life. But you have to accept, sooner rather than later, that that old life is…well, gone.”

“Dad could be…”

“He could be alive,” Bruce admitted. “He could be out there, scouring the galaxy looking for you. I’ll be honest, I hope he is. But what do you expect to happen after that? He gets a new ship, you hop aboard, and things go right back to how they were?”

The way he said it so plainly, it sounded downright silly, and Gwen felt her face burn with shame as she found herself admitting (internally, at least) that she had been laboring under some subconscious assumption of the sort. Hadn’t that been the tenor of her dream? If she just waited for Dad, found him again, he’d take her hand all over again and lead the way.

“You have a lot of very important people interested in you for very bad reasons,” Bruce went on. “I know it’s not fair, and I know it’s not right. But that’s just how it is. You can accept it, move forward, and maybe bring about some positive change as a result. Or, you can let your fear overwhelm you, paralyze you in place.”

“I’m not …” But Gwen couldn’t even lie to herself. She _was_ afraid, and she had been for nearly two full days—watching her life crumble around her, being told terrible secrets about who she was and what she was capable of, and to top it all off, the most powerful and bad guy in the galaxy was sending goon squads to scoop her up like a prize.

She was terrified.

“Fear isn’t always a _bad_ thing, Gwen,” Bruce told her. “But you have to temper it, let it lend itself to caution. You can’t let it take hold. When you allow fear to guide your actions, you become the worst version of yourself. One of the first things a Jedi is taught is to let go of fear.”

“How do you just let go of fear?” Gwen asked.

“It sounds so easy to say, doesn’t it?” Bruce smiled. “But fear is like a weed. You can rip it up and throw it aside, and things will seem better for a while. But the best way to let go of fear—to truly rid yourself of its influence—is to dig it up by its roots.”

“Now I understand what Dad meant about Jedi always speaking in riddles,” Gwen said. Bruce actually laughed at that, a small but genuine chuckle.

“It’s actually a long-respected Jedi teaching method,” he said. “If you just talk at your padawan, tell them lesson after lesson, it starts to get dull and preachy. Stick them with a riddle, send them on a mission, they come back a little more learned than when you left them.”

“Is that how you taught your padawans?”

“I never actually took a padawan, myself,” Bruce said. “I might have liked to, but…it just never felt like the right time.”

There was a melancholy in his tone told Gwen that the subject was better left put aside for the moment. After a brief pause in which she sifted through all that she had just been told, she took a deep breath. Might as well face this thing head-on.

“So, how do I dig my fear up by its roots?” she asked.

“The answer is in the question,” Bruce told her. “What’s the root of your fear? Deep down at the very base of it all, what’s driving it, feeding it?”

“I dunno,” Gwen half-whined. “I just…hate everything that’s happening. I want it all to go back to normal.”

“Everything’s changed so drastically,” Bruce said with a nod. “But you’re used to change, aren’t you? Every few months, a new planet, a new duty assignment for your dad. Surely it’s nothing new.”

“But…” That was technically true, but this was far from another of Dad’s assignments. For one thing, Dad wasn’t even _here_.

And there it was again, raking at her heart. Dad wasn’t here, and she didn’t know what to _do_. It wasn’t just that life was changing; Dad had been supporting so much of it, carrying so much weight without Gwen ever even thinking about it. Out on her own, all of it had been dumped unceremoniously in her lap. She was suddenly the master of her own destiny, without Dad’s hand to guide her along.

And that was terrifying.

“What if I do something wrong?” she asked quietly. “What if I mess up?”

“Oh, you will,” Bruce said with such confidence that Gwen attempted to glare at him—it was really more a pout, though. “Gwen, everyone messes up. Everyone. Life isn’t getting things right or wrong, it’s just going out there and doing your best.”

“‘What _can_ you do, and what _should_ you do?’,” Gwen said. “‘Find the overlap. Do that.’”

“I like it,” Bruce nodded. “That some fatherly wisdom?”

“Yeah,” Gwen said with a ghost of a smile. “He’s a pretty smart guy.”

“I am Groot.”

“You know, you don’t have to follow me,” Rocket said as he spoke from the doorway. Behind him, Groot waved at Gwen, who found herself smiling wider as she waved back. “Hey, uh, when you’re done with your share circle, your girlfriend has breakfast ready.”

“Thank you, Rocket,” Bruce said. “We’ll be along shortly.”

“Yeah,” Rocket said, turning and walking past Groot. “C’mon, Groot, it’s rude to stare.”

“I’m Groot.”

Gwen stood and stretched, letting a tiny yawn. She was due for a long nap once things really settled down.

If they ever did.

She felt something being pressed into her hand, a heavy metal cylinder about twenty centimeters long. It fit neatly in her palm, and its weight felt almost…familiar. Turning it over in her hands, she admired the various divots and raised black stylizations. It had obviously been meticulously crafted.

“Is this…?”

“I left the Jedi Order when I was about your age,” Bruce said. “Tried to find my own way and went down a…dark path. But I came back. Found my way back to the Light. When I returned…they still had the old lightsaber I used. I’ve kept it all these years, just in case. Now I guess I know why.”

Running a finger down the hilt, Gwen found the switch, glancing around before holding the saber out and activating it.

_KZSHT!_

A pale green blade bloomed before her eyes, illuminating the dim room in an emerald glow. The lightsaber buzzed softly, harmonizing with the low hum of the ship’s engines around them, and each tiny movement set off a small noise as it cut through the air.

_Vwoom…vwoo-voom._

“It’s beautiful,” Gwen said softly.

“An elegant weapon,” Bruce said. “Not as barbaric or straightforward as a blaster. A Jedi is meant to be adaptive, ready to react and take any situation for what it is, not what they wish it could be. A lightsaber is reflective of that. It represents what you are, but more than that, what you’re capable of.”

“I can keep this?” Gwen asked, and Bruce nodded, reaching to switch the weapon off. The blade collapsed back into the hilt with a sharp hissing sound, and Gwen set it on the nightstand next to her bunk.

“When we have a bit more time, I’ll run you through a few basics, see if we can teach you how to use it properly,” he said. “For now, get dressed. Rio’s got breakfast in the galley, and we’ll reach Alderaan soon.”

He left shortly after, and Gwen slipped off to the refresher to brush her teeth (times of crisis were no excuse for poor dental hygiene!) and give her face a quick splash of warm water. Freshened and woken up, she pulled on a simple workman’s turtleneck and overalls (Rocket had an alarming amount of clothing for humanoid species, all of it dubiously-obtained), stepping into a pair of boots. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it fit well and allowed for freedom of movement. Taking up the lightsaber, she studied it for a long moment. The weapon of a Jedi. Reconciling that title with herself was still a monumental task in her head and likely would be for some time; she simply couldn’t conceive of a world where she was lumped in with the Force-wielding knights of a decade past.

But, according to Bruce, she _could_ be a Jedi. And given the state the galaxy was in, it was only right that she _should_.

“Find the overlap,” she told herself, clipping the weapon to her belt and taking a deep breath before heading for the galley.

She wouldn’t be saving the galaxy on an empty stomach.

……

“You’ve got it bad, man.”

“I’ve got _what_ bad, exactly?” Miles asked, taking a bite of his eggs while staring across the small galley table at Ganke.

“Y’know… _it_ ,” Ganke insisted. “For Gwen.”

“You’re nuts,” Miles told him, though he felt his face heat up. Was he being that obvious?

“You make it so obvious,” Ganke said with a shake of his head. “You get these big goo-goo eyes, and you get all quiet when she walks into the room.”

“I _so_ do not get ‘goo-goo eyes’,” Miles retorted. “What even _is_ that?”

“You know, that puppy look of a young boy in love with a girl,” Ganke smirked, and Miles tossed a balled-up napkin at him.

“Miles, don’t throw napkins,” Mom said, and Ganke winked at him before she gave him a light slap with her towel. “Ganke, quit picking on my son. Gwen’s been through a lot, and the last thing she needs is you two being _boys_.”

“But we _are_ boys,” Ganke said. “We’re rambunctious scamps who have to show our camaraderie by laughing at each other.”

“You’ve been reading way too many books,” Miles grumbled.

“Oh, what books?” a perfectly soft and faintly musical voice spoke, making Miles’s heart thud as Gwen strode in. Her hair was pulled back into a messy bun, a few long tendrils still framing her face. Coupled with a pair of coveralls, she looked ready for a day in the droid shop, and Miles thought there was no way a girl could look more beautiful.

Ganke was right; he had it _bad_.

“I’ve been really into the _Court of Serenno_ series lately,” Ganke said as Gwen made her way around the table to settle into a seat next to Miles. He could see a lightsaber attached to her belt, but more importantly, there was a faint perfumed smell wafting off of her.

It was nice.

“I’ve never read those,” Gwen said. Pouring herself a cup of caf, she smiled over at Miles. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Miles said with a little smile back. She drank caf? He couldn’t stand the stuff, but the knowledge that she did made her seem…sophisticated. “Sleep well?”

“Aside from weird Jedi dreams,” she shrugged. “I hope that’s not a nightly thing.”

“Gwen, do you want eggs?” Mom asked.

“Yes, please, I’m starving,” Gwen said.

Mom doled her out a portion of eggs and a couple of sausages. Galactic Standard Time was around two in the morning, but in Miles’s personal opinion, there was never a wrong time for breakfast food, especially when Mom made it.

“Oh, this is amazing,” Gwen said after a bit of sausage. A single cough escaped her, and she sucked in a mouthful of cool air with wide eyes. “Wow!”

“It’s got some kick,” Ganke said. “The first time I had Rio’s food, I thought I’d eaten actual fire.”

“Is it too much?” Mom asked while Gwen took a drink of (regular, non-blue) milk. “Sorry, I didn’t really think about the fact that you’re not used to my cooking. I could make some more with a bit less – “

“No, no, I love it,” Gwen said with a small smile. “It tastes…real. I don’t get much of a chance to eat home-cooked food. Even when…Dad would take me planetside, it was restaurant food or something. So, this is great.”

“Want some toast?” Miles asked, pushing a plate of the stuff toward her. “It soaks up the oils from the spices, cuts the burn a bit.”

“Thanks,” Gwen said with a warm smile. “It really is good, just…”

“Mom’s family is from Fest,” Miles said. “It’s just on the cold edge of the habitable zone of its star, so even where it’s even warm, it’s not _that_ warm. Spicy food is just part of the culture.”

“Have you ever been?” Gwen asked, fanning her mouth after another bite of hot food.

“No, I’ve been on Tatooine my whole life,” Miles told her. “Mom only barely remembers the planet from when she was young.”

“How did she end up on Tatooine?” Gwen asked, and Miles couldn’t stop a frown as he speared a sausage and took a bite. “Unless you don’t wanna talk about it?”

“Nah, it’s no big deal,” he said through a mouthful of food (which would have scandalized Mom if she was paying attention). “She…met my dad. He brought her to Tatooine, said he was gonna start a militia and chase the Hutts off, end slavery on the whole planet. He had big dreams.”

“I bet the Hutts didn’t like that,” Gwen said, and Miles let a humorless laugh.

“One day she woke up, he was just…gone,” Miles said. “No body, no trace of where he went. Mom thinks the only reason they didn’t get her too was how locked down he kept the bedroom. He went out for an early-morning patrol, and he was gone.”

“Was it the Hutts?” Gwen asked in a low voice. Mom was busy washing dishes and couldn’t hear, at least.

“Or the Tuskens or the Empire,” Miles said. “These guys all have a way of getting involved with each other.”

“Do you think he’s still out there?” Gwen asked him.

“Part of me hopes so,” Miles said. “But…if he is, why wouldn’t he come back?”

“Maybe he didn’t wanna put his family in any more danger,” Gwen said. “People get crazy ideas about how to keep the ones they love out of danger.”

“Like hiding the fact that their daughter is a Jedi?” Miles suggested, and Gwen let a tiny sigh at that. “Sorry.”

“No, that’s…pretty much exactly what I was thinking,” she said. “Dad has a lot of explaining to do…if I ever see him again.”

“ _When_ you see him again,” Miles insisted. “Gotta keep that positive attitude.”

Gwen smiled at him, and Miles felt his heart give an honest thud at the warmth in her expression as she gently bumped him with her slim little shoulder.

“You’re sweet,” she said before climbing to her feet. “I’m gonna go see if Kaysix has anything new for me. You wanna join me?”

“Uh…I should stay and help Mom clean up,” Miles said.

“Aw, what a good son,” she grinned, and Miles snickered.

“Nah, I’m just afraid what she’ll do if I don’t.”

“Miles Gonzalo Jefferson Morales, I heard that,” Mom said. Gwen’s eyebrows shot up, and Miles felt heat in his face as she hid an amused smile behind her hand.

“Gonzalo,” she whispered.

“That is – “

“Gonzalo!” she giggled. Despite his embarrassment, Miles couldn’t help but find the sound adorable, and he gave her a playful shove. “Ah! Miles Gonzalo – “

“Out!” Miles said, ushering her to the door. “Go talk to your droid and forget everything you heard for the last two minutes!”

“Gonzaloooo!” she called back as Miles jammed the door control with his thumb, shutting it firmly in her wake. Turning around, he saw Ganke and Mom wearing twin looks of amusement.

“Not cool, Mom.”

……

Not too long after Miles had helped Mom put the last few plates into the miniscule dishwasher, Rocket called them all to assemble in the lounge. On the way, Miles met up with Gwen, who looked a bit disheartened.

“Nothing from your dad?” he asked, and she shook her head.

“We set up a few emergency contacts, just in case he had to get in touch with me while on the run or hiding,” Gwen said. “He…planned for a lot of different emergencies.”

“I guess so,” Miles said.

“I don’t have any messages on them,” she said. “I even looked through my entire spam folder, nothing that could be like…a coded message from him. I did learn a wookiee chieftain on Kashyyyk needs my help to access a five hundred million credit bank account.”

“Do you need to send him five thousand to get to it?” Miles asked, and Gwen nodded with a tiny smirk. “You better get on that. You know it’s legit because it’s a wookiee, and they’re a very honorable people.”

Gwen giggled at that, and Miles was glad to see a toothy little grin spread across her face. Gwen had the tiniest gap between her front teeth, which were otherwise perfectly straight. It caused a barely-noticeable lisp on certain words (ones with _s_ , _t_ , or _th_ in them), as if she couldn’t be any more adorable.

Ganke was right; he had it _bad_.

Once they had all congregated in the lounge (Gwen’s droid hovering behind her like some kind of bodyguard), Rocket motioned to the seats that they had strapped into when taking off from Tatooine. Had it been only a few hours ago? It felt like much longer to Miles.

“Alright, strap in, kiddos,” the raccoon said. “We’re gonna land in Delaney, the five of you are gonna take your droid and get offa my ship, and I’m gonna take off and, _hopefully_ , not see the lot of you for a very, very long time.”

“I am _Groot_.”

“I _meant_ to be rude. We’re not here to make friends.”

“Thank you for the lift, Rocket,” Bruce said. “You saved us back there.”

“Yeah, alright,” Rocket said with a wave of his paws, clearly discomforted at the praise. “You know how the harnesses work. Bruce, you and your girl can take the passenger seats in the cockpit. No messing with the navicomputer this time, though.”

“Your approach vector was – “

“Precisely calculated!” Rocket said in heated tones as the four of them headed for the corridor leading to the cockpit. “Groot, keep the engines hot. I don’t wanna be on the ground for more than a couple minutes.”

“I’m Groot.”

“ _Sightsee_? What’s there to see on Alderaan?”

“A lot, actually,” Gwen muttered, though she still seemed in good spirits as she smiled over at Miles. They settled onto the same curved couch as before, strapping themselves down.

“Excited to be going home?” Miles asked.

“Yeah,” she said, though she didn’t sound entirely sure of herself. “It’s just been so long, and things are so different now. I’m not sure it’ll still feel like home.”

“Well, you should show us around,” Ganke said. “I’ve never seen a city before. How tall are the buildings?”

“I heard some of the taller Coruscant buildings actually go through the clouds,” Miles said.

“Maybe there are places like that in Aldera, on the opposite side of the planet,” Gwen said with a small laugh. “Delaney’s a pretty small city. I mean…there are plenty of pretty big office buildings, but it’s not like a tourist spot with much to see.”

“It’s where you’re from,” Miles said. “That’s a place worth seeing.”

Gwen’s face turned a bit pink at that, and she shot Miles a tiny smile while staring at her knees.

“Well…thank you, Miles,” she said. Miles felt his own face warm a bit as he realized what he’d said, but before he could stammer out anything else, Ganke nudged him, grinning when Miles looked his way.

“Not bad, man,” he mouthed.

……

Gwen knew as soon as she’d dismounted the ramp into the hangar that something was wrong. It was silent—eerily so—and she’d been through enough spaceports in her life to know that there was never a time when they weren’t humming with activity. All around the circular landing pad, docking and customs droids sat dormant, the lights behind their eyes flickering or simply out. In addition, no matter how automated the port was, at least one living being should have been there to greet them. Many spaceports had tried fully automated landing procedures in the past, until a number of smugglers and less-than-savory types had taken advantage of high-powered slicing tools and gotten past them. In a small town like Delaney—where any assassin or thief could try to slip onto the planet’s surface under the radar—there would be at least three.

“Something’s wrong,” Gwen said softly, suddenly aware of an invisible weight pressing on her chest, constricting her breathing. “Something’s… Bruce?”

“I feel it, too,” Bruce said with a wince. He pressed a hand to his forehead, rubbing at his temples. “It’s like…a hole in the Force. Like it’s been stabbed with a knife.”

“There’s no people,” Rio said. “Anywhere. Where is everyone?”

“Hey!” Miles called from one of the landing struts. “Uh…it’s not winter, is it?”

It was a balmy twenty-three degrees outside, leading Gwen to wonder what was prompting the question. She hurried around the ramp, along with the others, and she felt a cold wave of dread at what she saw.

The landing pad jutted out from the side of the spaceport, meaning the side opposite the entrance to the building itself overlooked one of the thousands of mountain ranges that dotted Alderaan. Normally, this would have afforded disembarking passengers a stunning preview of what awaited them during their trip. Verdant green mountainsides that gave way to snowcapped peaks, picturesque valleys carved with pristine blue rivers, and frolicking wildlife should have greeted them.

Instead, there was only a barren, brown hellscape.

“What…what hap—what happened?” Gwen asked, feeling her legs begin to go numb. Just as she was in danger of collapsing, Kaysix reached out to support her, and she attempted to hold herself up on the iron beam of one of his arms. “No…I….”

She had to be dreaming; this could only be another nightmare, an extremely vivid one brought on by her newly-awakened awareness of the Force. There was no way that the Latour Mountain Range would be such a gray, muddy brown, with only the occasional skeletal husk of a tree left. The rolling plains were in a similar state—it looked as though the grass had been erased, the trees plucked of all life until only dead wooden twigs stuck from the ground. There were no animals, none of the sounds of nature she had long since come to associate with home. It was silent but for the wind buffeting against them.

“Oh, man,” Ganke breathed.

“K-Kaysix,” Gwen said, fighting back the taste of bile. “Life signs?”

“There are no signs of life within the reaches of my scanners,” Kaysix informed her, “down to the microbial level. Aside from you.”

“Gwen,” Bruce said. “We should—Gwen. Gwen!”

It wasn’t until Bruce’s shouting faded behind her that she even realized she was running. What compelled her to do so, she couldn’t say, much more than the desire to get away from this, this perversion of her home. The more she ran, though, the worse it got. Familiar streets began to surround her, businesses she’d frequented as a child, several lifetimes ago. Lee’s Candy Shop, the Belamere Boutique, Thompson’s Droid Repair, places whose mere sight unearthed a wave of almost-forgotten memories. But the shops were empty, the sidewalks barren. Speeders and small ships littered streets, and some had crashed into buildings or gouged trenches into the pavement.

But there were no people.

It was as though they’d simply vanished, been eradicated from existence with no preamble or warning. Gwen was reminded horribly of her dream, of the great purple light that had wiped everyone out.

Had that been a premonition?

Without even thinking about it, she had reached a familiar intersection, and she felt a clammy sweat break out over her body as she made her way toward 31 Rosen Street.

Even after years in space, Dad hadn’t sold their home. He made enough money as the captain of a ship to keep up on the payments and buy a couple of housekeeping droids so that the place would be pristine if they ever had the occasion to come back.

Not that they had.

The place seemed smaller as she approached, what she remembered as a vast front yard now a small patch of dirt and tufts of dead blades. She hadn’t been here in nearly eight years, and she had no doubt exaggerated a few features of the house in her memories. Compared to the dismal gray of what had been her life aboard Imperial cruisers and bases, the rosy-gold glow of nostalgia had bloomed brighter in the back of her head.

It was thus all the more nauseating to see what had become of it all.

“Gwen?” a voice spoke quietly behind her, and she reached blindly back with a hand. Warm, calloused fingers wrapped around hers, squeezing tightly, and she pulled Miles forward.

“Come with me,” she said in a choked, strained voice, leading him up the steps to her front porch. The aching memories of lounging with Dad on a Friday night—drinking a Lopez while Dad had a glass of brandy—made it difficult to stay on her feet. Reaching a shaking hand out, she had to try three times to press her thumb against the reader next to the door, which was thankfully still functional enough to let her inside.

A quiet pneumatic his sounded as the door slid open, and she was met with the smell of home. The long-forgotten scent pulled her back in time, to simpler days of her and Dad. Summer mornings spent making breakfast and coffee while Dad slept in and enjoyed some rest after a long week. Evenings at the dinner table prodding away at her school-issue holopad and trying to figure out another complex math problem while Dad marveled at how smart she’d gotten.

It all felt like another life, now. One that had been taken from her and was now being paraded before her eyes in some twisted funhouse mirror. Dad had taken her away from all this, and now it was gone forever. Her home only existed in fuzzy memories anymore, the real thing broken and destroyed in the worst way.

It wasn’t fair.

It just wasn’t _fair_!

_Tk-tk-tk…CLUNG!_

The groan of bending metal caused her to jolt, and she looked up to see that the entryway around her had crumpled inward a bit, like an empty drink can that had been squeezed but not fully crushed. She whirled around to see Miles staring at her shock, his eyes darting to the crushed interior of the house before back to hers.

“Was that…you?” he asked in awe.

“I… Maybe,” Gwen admitted. There had been a strange pull within her in that moment, a surge of anger that had seemed to extend beyond her. “I think I just used the Force.”

“Well…that was a real freaky Force thing,” Miles said with another look at the bent walls and ceiling.

“Miles…” Gwen trailed off, trying to find the words to express how she felt. It was impossible, though. There was simply no feeling that could encompass the scope of this tragedy. Her entire hometown had been purged of all life, and who knew how far the damage went? The whole country? The whole continent?

The entire planet?

The very thought brought Gwen to her knees, and Miles crouched next to her. It felt like there was no room left for grief, like she’d already reached her limit and then been unceremoniously catapulted way beyond it.

She cried. Anguished, gut-wrenching, body-wracking sobs that robbed her of breath and shook her to her core. Every time she managed to suck in a lungful of air, it was pulled right back out by the utter despair of the moment.

Miles was holding her, squeezing her and rubbing slow circles on her back. It was little comfort, but his presence was welcome. He said nothing, which Gwen was grateful for; there was nothing to _be_ said, no words that could possibly lessen the impact of the moment.

“Um, we should probably get moving,” he finally said, once Gwen’s sobbing had subsided to shaky hiccups. “I kinda ran after you, and…I’m not really sure where everyone else is.”

“You ran after me?” Gwen asked, climbing to her feet.

“Well…yeah, I saw you taking off, and…”

He trailed off, and Gwen might have smiled at him if such a thing had still felt possible.

“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s – “

“Hey!” a voice shouted, and Gwen felt her heart sink (as if it wasn’t low enough already) at the familiar sound of a stormtrooper helmet’s voice modulator. “Hands up! Identify yourselves!”

They both turned to see two stormtroopers standing in the doorway of her house, _her home_ , imposing themselves on her life in yet another way. Both were holding standard-issue blaster rifles, leveled at her and Miles.

“Don’t shoot!” Miles said, his hands up as he interposed himself between the soldiers and Miles. “We’re just…residents. Wondering what happened.”

“What are your names?” the lead stormtrooper asked while the one in the rear pressed a hand to his helmet, probably radioing his squadron leader. “Are you citizens of Delaney?”

Abruptly, a white-hot fury bloomed in Gwen. The presence of soldiers right on her doorstep—the perfect illustration for the imposition the Empire had been on her entire life—was the final straw, enraging her and alerting her to that same pull as before.

“Get out of my house,” she said, surprised at how calm she was able to make her voice as she stepped past Miles. The soldiers twitched and raised their rifles to train them on her.

“Not another step, young lady!” the one in the lead said. “Once we’ve verified your identity, we’ll – “

“My name is Gwen Stacy,” Gwen said, watching the soldiers go still as they recognized her name. “This was my home. This was my _life_! You’ve _ruined_ it! You’ve ruined _everything_!”

A credenza near the door slid toward her, scraping across the floor, and she clutched a shaky fist as she whipped it toward the one in the lead. The piece of furniture arced off the floor and landed at the soldier’s feet, sending him tumbling to the floor. The one behind him staggered back, but Gwen was after him.

“Gwen, wait!” Miles shouted.

_Gwen, wait. Gwen, stop. Gwen, be reasonable. Gwen, try to understand._

_KZSHT!_

The lightsaber was ignited in her hand as soon as she’d remembered its presence, the blade a glowing green that steamed ever so slightly at the misting drizzle that had begun to fall. The familiar smell of a summer rainfall on hot asphalt only served to remind her of all that had been taken from her. Out in the street, the soldier tripped over a fallen light pole, sending his gun flying away as he went sprawling to the ground. It was all the pause Gwen needed to close the distance.

“We’re just following orders!” the stormtrooper insisted, obviously cowed at the sight of the mythical weapon in the hands of someone who at least looked like she knew how to use it. “We didn’t have anything to do with – “

“Shut up!” Gwen screamed. She advanced on the stormtrooper, holding the blade out inches from his chest. “This whole time, I haven’t been able to do it. I thought if I killed someone or even tried to, I’d never be able to go back to who I was before. But you made it easy. There _is_ no ‘before’ anymore. I have nothing _left_!”

“Gwen!” Miles called from behind her. “He’s defenseless, you can’t just – “

“Stay out of this, Miles!” Gwen said over her shoulder.

“Uh, no!” Miles shouted back. “You’re my friend, and you’re about to do something really stupid.”

“Listen to him, Gwen,” Bruce’s voice spoke from nearby. Gwen turned for a quick look to see him approaching, along with Kaysix. “I know what it’s like to be angry. Believe me. And I know you think that by making the world feel some hurt, you can just…get rid of the pain. But all you’re doing is creating more.”

“He’s – “

“A person,” Bruce said, his voice drawing nearer as he stepped up beside Gwen. He looked down to the trooper. “Take your helmet off.”

With shaking hands, the trooper reached up and took his helmet off with a small pneumatic hiss, and Gwen felt like a cold hand had taken a hold of her insides when she saw a boy that had to have barely just turned eighteen, with a look of raw fear on his face.

“They were…gonna take my sister,” he said. “I had to join. I didn’t want to be a part of…this.”

His expression turned bleak as he looked at the desolation all around them, his eyes hollow and haunted. Gwen found herself lowering her lightsaber, which deactivated with a low hiss.

“When I heard I was getting shipped to Alderaan, I thought…at least my first deployment would be somewhere beautiful,” the boy said in a faraway voice.

“You don’t think this is beautiful? I think it’s…divine. An example of true, raw power.”

All of them turned toward a voice, and Gwen got her first look at a besalisk in the flesh.

He was tall—easily over two meters—and powerfully built, sporting four arms corded with dense muscle. Gray-brown scales covered most of him, smooth in some spots but raised into hardened ridges and spines along his joints. His brow, most noticeably, bore a thick crest that swooped back along his skull. His reptilian face was set with narrow slits of eyes, while his wide, froglike mouth dominated most of his features. Currently, it was pulled into a grin equal parts mad and serene.

“Master Krell,” Bruce said in a quiet voice, moving between the other three and the besalisk. “It’s been some time.”

“Indeed, Master Banner,” the besalisk agreed, the wattle under his chin puffing slightly with his words. His top hands reached up to undo a black cloak, which furled to the ground to reveal a black tunic and deep gray leggings. Notably, he seemed to prefer to go barefoot. Behind him, a ship floated silently to the ground from between two office buildings, deploying some sort of armored troops to fan out around him. “I wondered if you’d made it through the Purge. It seems your abandoning of the Jedi Order was an idea with some merit after all.”

“I will say, I missed that winning attitude,” Bruce told him. Gwen felt a metal hand close on her wrist, and she jumped before turning to see Kaysix quietly pulling her away. Miles was already stepping slowly back, and even the trooper was attempting to extricate himself from the situation. “I’m glad we ran into each other; I needed to be reminded why I never joined the Council during your tenure.”

“You never joined the Council because they didn’t trust a former Sith Lord to help guide the Order,” Krell spat back.

“Forgive me if I seem a bit unaffected by the criticisms of a fallen Jedi,” Bruce said. “Yours was never the endorsement I was after.”

“No, of course not,” Krell sneered. “You were too busy at Master Rogers’s feet, worshipping the ground he walked on.”

“Oh, so you were jealous,” Bruce drawled. “That’s not very becoming of a Jedi.”

“Your glibness is obviously an attempt at distraction,” Krell pointed out. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed the droid and your companions.”

“This doesn’t concern them,” Bruce said. “Whatever you’re here for – “

“I’m here for her,” Krell said, and Gwen sighed; of course. “The daughter of Jedi Master Helen Kloves. The resemblance is uncanny.”

“And what concern is she to you?” Bruce asked.

“Oh, she’s of no interest to me personally,” Krell admitted with a single nod toward Gwen. “No offense.”

“Believe me, none taken,” Gwen insisted.

“I’m here more as a favor to a friend,” Krell went on. “My business with my new master brought me to this planet in the first place, but when the Force granted me a vision of your arrival, I knew that there was something…cataclysmic in motion.”

“Your new master?” Bruce asked. “And who might that be?”

In response, Krell withdrew two long, thick lightsabers from within the folds of his cloak. While his top two hands took hold of one, the bottom pair split the other in half, holding the two smaller hilts out at his sides while the other was brought up in a classic ready stance.

_KSH! KSH! KSH!_

Three deep violet blades sprang into view, and the besalisk gave them an elegant twirl.

“The knowledge would only curse you,” he said. “Believe me. Your death in this moment is a mercy.”

“Back to the ship!” Bruce said. The fallen master sprang forward, moving impossibly fast, and purple clashed against crimson and amber. Bruce brought two lightsabers up against Krell’s three, the blades shrieking as they locked.

“We should do what he says,” Miles said in a thin voice, reaching blindly to take Gwen’s wrist and pull her away with Kaysix at their heels. “Kaysix, time for blasters.”

“I like when it’s time for blasters,” the droid said. He pulled three blasters free from a latch on his side, tossing two toward them and raising the third as they reached the detachment of Krell’s soldiers.

They were horrific, of course. Their armor gleamed dull gray in the sunlight, covering everything but their faces and leaving Gwen to wish that it did so. They had vaguely humanoid skulls, with leathery skin pulled tight and giving them the look of desiccated corpses. The only sign of life was a small gleam to their beetle-like eyes, deep within their sockets.

Snarling and screeching, the creatures swarmed toward the quartet, and only then did Gwen realize that the stormtrooper she had nearly beheaded was right alongside them, raising his rifle with a determined expression. He fired a volley of blasts, and Gwen raised her pistol.

_Kew-kew!_

Two shots, and two of the skull creatures crumpled alongside nearly a dozen of their brethren. Kaysix had the benefit of a complex targeting array, their soldier companion a short but effective stint in the Stormtrooper Academy. Gwen herself had put in a lot of time at the _Sentinel_ ’s firing range, and Miles had probably had more than enough practice with various weapons in his time on Tatooine. Between the four of them, they were a rather effective fighting force.

There were a _lot_ of the skull-faces, though.

“Where’s the ship!?” Gwen shouted as they ducked away from the crowd and down a street leading along a row of tenement houses. Picking their way through the wreckage of an airbus, Gwen looked back to see Miles firing a shot over his shoulder and nailing a skull-face right in its skull face. With his other hand, he produced a small communicator.

“Rocket! Come in, Rocket!”

“ _Little busy, kid_ ,” Rocket’s voice came over the device. “ _You too?_ ”

“We’ve got a whole swarm of these things on us!”

“ _First of all, you don’t have to shout_ ,” Rocket said flatly. “ _We’re scraping a few off the ship, but we’ll be airborne in a couple minutes. Find somewhere open and stay there. We’ll track you through the thing_.”

“If we stay anywhere, we’ll get—stupid raccoon!”

He stuffed the communicator in his pocket—Rocket had likely cut the feed—and looked to Gwen with wide eyes.

“Any ideas?” he asked. Gwen turned to chance a look behind them. If anything, the crowd of skull-faces had only grown larger, scrambling over each in a shambling horde in their single-minded mission to reach them.

“I was thinking shoot them?” she suggested.

“I like that plan,” Kaysix said.

“Same here,” the trooper added.

As one, the quartet broke free from the other side of the airbus, putting some distance between it and themselves before turning and raising their weapons. A hail of blaster fire pelted the skull-faces, which were bottlenecked as they emerged from the airbus. More of the things had split off to circle around the vehicle, and Kaysix and the trooper blasted them while Gwen and Miles handled the middle.

“Obstruction behind!” the trooper shouted, and Gwen’s heart sank as she rounded to see a massive cargo ship of some sort wedged firmly between the buildings behind them, creating an extremely effective roadblock and forcing them to turn and confront the encroaching skull-faces.

“You know how to use that lightsaber?” the trooper asked.

“It was just given to me like half an hour ago,” Gwen said, and he made a face at that.

“Well, couldn’t you…use the Force or something?” he asked.

“I don’t even know how the Force _works_!” Gwen said.

“Now might be a good time to figure it out,” Miles added.

“Well…yeah, that’s a point,” Gwen said, handing Kaysix her blaster and taking out her lightsaber as the horde converged on them. There were dozens, maybe more than a hundred of the creatures. Bruce was nowhere in sight, and their air support wouldn’t arrive for an indeterminate amount of time. As the only one of them with even a fledgling ability to use the Force, she was their best shot at holding out for backup.

_KZSHT!_

As she faced the beasts down, an echo of Dad’s words from so many years ago drifted through her thoughts. On the day that she had sat at a park not far from here and groused over her changing lot in life, Dad had told her something on the walk home, and the words only now came back to her.

_“Sometimes, you’ll draw the short straw. Life’ll smack you in the face, and all you’ll be able to do is take it to the chin. You can grumble about it and you can wish and wish that it was different, but all you’re doing is letting life wind up for the next big hit. It’s not fair. Sometimes, Gwendy…sometimes you just have to deal with it. And each time life hits you and tries to knock you down, you wipe off your chin, you look it in the eye, and you say…”_

“I’m not done with you,” Gwen muttered to herself, taking a deep breath. Whatever she’d done before to use the Force, it had been from a place of raw emotion and not conscious thought. Overthinking things was her specialty, but it didn’t seem the pathway to any sort of mastery of the Force. Letting her emotions take hold, however, had led to what Miles had called a “freaky Force thing”.

Could she turn off both? Emotion _and_ thought? Everyone seemed ruled by one or the other (though varying degrees of both seemed most common), but maybe that was the crux of being a Jedi. Working out how to put both by the wayside and…do what?

There was one way to find out.

With her lightsaber held out at her side, she slowly advanced toward the tide of skull-faces, knowing that she should be properly terrified at the sight of the writhing horde. As they raised an assortment of strange blasters (each was unique enough that she suspected they were all handmade by their wielders), all she allowed to take hold in her head was a singular determination not to let them win. A volley of blaster fire flew at her, and she did the stupidest thing she could have possibly done.

She closed her eyes.

It was like the old mechanical games at the street fairs Dad had taken her to as a child; a little rat creature sprung up from a hole, and you were supposed to smack it with a mallet before it disappeared. Gwen had always been extremely good at those games, the ones that had relied on reaction time and accuracy.

Looking back, she wondered if she had been unknowingly cheating.

Each tiny pinprick of blaster fire floated toward her awareness as she raised her lightsaber, twitching and spinning it toward every bolt that came at her or risked flying past toward her friends. At the same time, she ducked and wove away from others, moving faster than she could think about it and twirling like a trained dancer.

Soon, the hail of fire stopped, and Gwen dared open to her eyes as she drew closer. The nearest skull-faces had holstered their blasters and drawn out an assortment of cruel-looking melee weapons, which they brandished at her as they charged.

This part was a bit easier.

Gwen was no trained fighter, but whoever had outfitted the skull-faces had gone for quantity over quality. Their movements were wild and feral, their armor flimsy enough that her lightsaber carved through them with alarming ease, cutting them down in swaths.

She was definitely going to have nightmares about this.

A few times, a skull-face would threaten to get through her wide swings and inexpert fighting stance with a few well-placed hits, but a shot from one of the others would take them out, and by the time she finished with the center batch of them, she saw that an even larger group had emerged from either side of the airbus but had already been taken out by them.

“Did we get ‘em?” Miles called to her, and Gwen let a shaky laugh of relief.

“I think so!” she said.

“You were awesome!” the stormtrooper cheered.

“Okay, let’s get out of – “ Gwen broke off with a jolt as she heard thundering footsteps, and the airbus shuddered and shook before denting with the force of a jump. A dark blur flew over her head, landing with a heavy thud between her and the others, and Pong Krell brandished his three lightsabers at her.

“An impressive feat, little one,” he said in his deep rumble. “Not many padawans are so naturally able to draw on the Force.”

Gwen staggered back with a sharp gasp, suddenly acutely aware of the fact that this man had once been a Jedi Master and had very likely kept up with his training since then. Clutching her lightsaber, she held it aloft, but her arms began to tremble with exhaustion.

“You’re afraid,” Krell observed. “And you’re angry. This was your home?”

Gwen looked beyond Krell, to where Miles, Kaysix, and the trooper were all standing frozen; any attempt at intervention was nothing less than a death wish.

“Come, now,” Krell said, lowering his blades and deactivating them. Of course, this made him no less dangerous; any Jedi Master worth his salt knew several ways to end a life without using a lightsaber. “We’re having a talk.”

“What did you do to Bruce?” Gwen asked.

“Oh, he’s alive,” Krell said flippantly, waving one of his lower hands in a dismissive gesture. “He was much too valuable to allow to die, not yet. Thankfully, I was able to…disarm him…without killing him. Now I’ll have to ask you to come with me. An associate of mine has a great interest in the daughter of Helen Kloves.”

“There are an awful lot of people interested in my mother,” Gwen said, her lightsaber starting to droop in her aching arms. “And none of them seem to realize that I’m not her.”

“Perhaps not,” Krell said. “But with your mother having been lost in the Purge, you’re all that’s left of her. And as you can tell, there are many who are drawn to her legacy, to the lasting impression she’s left on the Force. That stunt of yours tells me you at least have the potential to be as formidable with it as she was. You’ll obviously require training; I can see the fatigue setting in. You allowed the Force to guide your movements and enable your victory, but you overexerted yourself.”

“And I suppose you’ll offer to train me?” Gwen asked him, feeling her legs beginning to shake. This wasn’t good; evil though he obviously was, Krell was also correct. A tingling numbness was beginning to take hold of her limbs, sweat beading on her forehead. She felt like she’d run a marathon and sprinted to the finish, but the glow of adrenaline-fueled victory had given way to the raw realization that she’d pushed herself much too far.

“That would be a rare pleasure,” Krell said. “You’d make a fine pupil.”

“Full offense, but I’ll pass,” Gwen said, staring briefly over Krell’s shoulder. In the distance, a shadow was beginning the grow over the rooftops. “You’re creepy and evil, and I already have a master.”

“Banner?” Krell scoffed. “Oh, I must say, that would be quite interesting. But my associate won’t be kept waiting.”

“He’ll have to be,” Gwen said, leaning back against the airbus behind her for support. “My ride’s here.”

The rush of the _Falcon_ ’s engines filled the air as it bore down on the group, kicking up a draft that buffeted everyone present. While the ship hovered overhead, the ramp lowered to reveal Rocket and Groot, and Groot leapt from the ramp as Rocket raised a rifle larger than he was, aiming it squarely at the fallen Jedi Master. There was a sharp crack, followed by the hiss of one of Krell’s lightsabers as he swiped at the bolt. Upon connecting with the blade, though, the shot sizzled and glowed white hot, splashing against the besalisk’s face in molten splatter.

“Gah!” he shouted, snarling as Rocket reloaded and fired another slug. This one connected with the fallen Master, and he growled in pain as muddy green blood began to run down his tunic. While he was reeling, Groot had closed the distance, towering over Krell.

“I. Am. Groot.”

Without waiting for a response, Groot reached out and seized each of Krell’s arms in his branches, spinning and throwing the fallen Master with a yell. The ship came in low, and Gwen watched the others hurry to the ramp where Ganke was waiting.

Did that mean Rio was piloting?

“Gwen, let’s go!” Miles shouted over the roar of the engines.

“I am Groot!” Groot urged her, picking her up and hurrying toward the ship. Gwen might have protested being carried, but her legs felt like jelly, incapable of a steady trot much less a run.

As they made for the ramp, Groot suddenly stopped with a wordless shout, and Gwen looked behind them to see Pong Krell with his right two arms outstretched toward the pair. Glancing down, she saw that Groot had dug his feet in, rooting himself like the tree he resembled. That had to be the only reason they hadn’t gone flying toward the Master.

“Rocket!” she screamed, seeing the raccoon absent from the ramp. Suddenly, the aft gun jerked to life, spinning to aim toward the besalisk before powering up with a keening whine.

_VEET-VEET-VEET-VEET-VEET-VEET!_

Former Jedi Master Pong Krell undoubtedly had prodigious talent with the Force, but even he couldn’t block cannonfire from a starfighter. Two of the shots hit wide, sending plumes of dust up and filling the air with the odor of molten concrete. Whatever else happened was obscured by the haze, but Groot’s progress toward the ramp resumed, so he’d obviously been forced to let go of them. The tree man flung Gwen toward the ramp, where she was caught and steadied by Miles. As the ship took off, he climbed up himself, smiling creakily at Gwen.

“I am Groot,” he said.

“Thanks, Groot,” Gwen said. “You really saved me there.”

“I’m _Groot_.”

“Where’s Bruce?” Miles asked Ganke, who gestured inside as the ramp closed with a hiss.

“He’s inside already,” he said. “I dunno what happened, but…”

At first, Gwen thought he was trailing off, unable to find words to describe Bruce’s fate, and then she wondered if she simply couldn’t hear him over the noise of the engines. But the ramp had closed; how were they still so loud?

Oh, that was the roar of blood rushing through her ears as she lost consciousness.

That made more sense…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is appreciated.


	5. Chapter 5

“Good morning, Captain Cody.”

The sound of a crisp, clear voice jolted Cody awake, the soldier blinking as he was met with a blinding white light. Instinctively, he raised a hand to shield his eyes, and his mind went from foggily half-conscious to complete wakefulness at the sight that met him.

“What in the…?”

Where his arm had been fairly standard flesh and bone before, there was now gleaming white duraplast, a series of segmented plates separated by a black weave that hid the electronic guts underneath. There was a moment of detachment, where Cody struggled to reconcile this artificial limb as his own. Turning his hand over, he watched the fingers move and flex with nary a thought, just as responsive as the real thing. The only difference was a slight numbness, like he’d slept on it at a funny angle and was now dealing with an admittedly articulate dead arm.

“How…?”

As he took a moment to adjust to the presence and feel of his newly-replaced limb, nebulous memories of the most recent mission began to surface, and strikingly clear among them was the searing feeling of his limbs being cut away by a lightsaber.

That would definitely stick with him.

Managing to sit up, a quick look around told him that he was in a fairly typical med-bay, the sort found aboard any cruiser or tucked into the center of nearly every Imperial barracks. Sterile white walls and floors, rounded cots and examination centers, all of it was reminiscent of the cloning facility on Kamino where he’d spent his formative years.

All six of them.

“Hello?” Cody called out, reaching down to pull away the thin sheet covering him. He found the normally simple action made difficult by his new fingers, which struggled with the fine motor movements required.

“Allow me to help with that,” a cool female voice spoke, the same one he’d awoken to. Looking up, Cody was a bit shocked to recognize the face of the girl he’d been sent to rescue on Tatooine. For a short moment, he wondered if they had managed to complete the mission even after his incapacitation, but only seconds later, he realized that she bore an uncanny resemblance.

And “uncanny” was the appropriate word, Cody realized. The woman obligingly pulling away his blanket and assisting him to his feet was no woman at all but an extremely lifelike droid. There was a faint but inhuman glow coming from behind her eyes, and what Cody had initially thought to be a particularly gaudy necklace was in fact a power source, a small arc reactor embedded in the center of her chest. Otherwise, she looked remarkably human, a near carbon copy of Gwen Stacy, though slightly older and wearing a clinical white lab coat.

“Who are you?” the soldier asked, stumbling a bit as he stood up. Looking down, he spared only the briefest moment registering his new cybernetic leg; loss of limb was hardly a surprising consequence of his line of work. “Why do you look like Gwen Stacy?”

“I am Jocasta,” the nurse told him, smiling brightly to show off perfectly straight, even teeth that gleamed just a little _too_ whitely. “I’m the overseer of Site 1610.”

“What happened to me?” Cody asked, brushing aside the matter of the droid’s appearance. Darth Vader’s proclivities were his own and of no concern to the soldier. “How’s my team? Were there casualties?”

“Your right arm and leg were severed, and you suffered a rather serious blaster wound in your left thigh, as well as a sprained left wrist,” Jocasta told him in an almost insultingly matter-of-fact tone, like she was rattling off the night’s menu for the mess hall. Biting back his distaste for clankers’ general lack of any form of empathy, he simply listened as she went on. “You were brought to Site 1610, where your wounds were healed, and you were equipped with the finest combat-ready cybernetic limbs available. Are they suitable?”

Cody risked another step, feeling strange settling his weight on the numb support of his new right leg. He knew, in theory, everything that he needed in order not to tip over was there. Communicating such a thing to the subconscious need to steady himself was another matter entirely, however.

“Still a bit shaky,” he said. “I’ll manage.”

“There will be an adjustment period, of course,” Jocasta went on, her synthetic voice (Cody could hear the mechanical undertones to it now) injected with artificial cheer. “Lord Vader does send along his insistence that you attend a few rehabilitation sessions before reentering combat.”

“I’ll manage,” Cody repeated insistently. No droid would tell him how to handle his recuperation.

“I really gotta say, I’ve always admired that cool determination you clones have,” another voice spoke from behind him, and Cody rounded shakily to see Lord Vader himself standing there—well, a hologram of him, which made his black armor and imposing presence no less menacing. Hologram or not, Cody was about to spring to a salute before Vader held up a hand to forestall him. “Please, no need for decorum right now. At least calibrate the arm and leg before you give yourself a concussion saluting too hard.”

“The sentiment is there, at least,” Cody assured him.

“And it is duly appreciated,” Vader added, “as is that plucky attitude of yours. You’re gonna need it.”

“My Lord?”

“Listen, I know you’re probably beating yourself up over the last mission,” Vader observed. “That’s one of the things I admire about you clone troopers. You really invest yourselves in your job.”

“Our duty is all we have, my lord,” Cody said. “All we are.”

“If Blonsky hadn’t been there, things might have gone better,” Vader said. “That was my fault. I panicked, not my proudest moment. Bruce Banner’s presence does put a spanner in the works, one I am regrettably unprepared for.”

“And you hate being unprepared,” Cody pointed out.

“I really, _really_ do,” Vader said. “To that end… Back in the day, I spearheaded a team, I’m sure you remember?”

“The Avengers,” Cody said. He remembered them well. The Grand Army of the Republic had worked with several Avengers in their time, including the man that had served as the clones’ genetic template.

“The Avengers were…the best of the best, brought together for a singular purpose to achieve that which no single person could,” Vader said with a gesture at Cody. “And, of course, a young Clint Barton went on to leave his mark in the annals of history.”

“Clones never miss,” Cody said with a grin, remembering well the old clone catchphrase.

“With that in mind,” Vader went on, “I’m looking to start a new team, a sort of…second generation. I need talent, fresh faces who have what it takes to go up against the heavy hitters on the other side.”

“The Rebellion has heavy hitters?” Cody asked. Aside from Banner, he didn’t know of anyone else able to cause real trouble.

“I know they haven’t shown all their cards,” Vader said. “Not to mention, the Rebellion isn’t the only enemy out there. I have reason to believe that former Jedi Master Pong Krell is still alive and active. You remember him?”

“Oh, I remember,” Cody said darkly.

“I thought you might,” Vader said with grim amusement. “He’s not the type for a cause, much less one on the losing side. Therefore, I can only conclude that there’s a third player on the field, one I don’t know nearly enough about.”

“And we’re to find out?” Cody asked. “Who’s on the team?”

“I have some suggestions,” Vader said, “though if you believe any of your colleagues would do well…”

“Appo,” Cody said immediately. There were other clones still in the ranks of the Imperial military, but Appo was the only one Cody had worked alongside extensively in the past several years.

“Oh, he’s already on the roster,” Vader nodded, “as well as a few other clones that have continued to distinguish themselves.”

“I’d also like Dobalina,” Cody said. “And Palmer, the medic.”

“I’ll have JARVIS requisition them immediately,” Vader said. “They should be here in a few hours.”

“A few hours?” Cody asked. “Where exactly are we, my lord?”

“Well, I’m on my ship, about to make a jump to Boonta,” Vader said, gesturing over his shoulder with a holographic arm. “You and Appo were transported from Tatooine to Site 1610, on the planet Tython.”

“Never heard of it,” Cody said with a shake of his head.

“Most haven’t,” Vader nodded. “It’s not on most star charts made within the last thousand or so years. I happened upon it by complete accident some time ago, and now it’s where I keep all my good stuff.”

“Glad to know I qualify as ‘good stuff’,” Cody smirked.

“Commander, with you as my War Machine, leading my Ultimates,” Vader said, “you’ll be quite a bit more than good. You’ll be exactly what this Empire needs.”

“That’s all I ever wanted to be.”

……

“Alright, give them a wiggle.”

George snickered a bit at Riri’s choise of words, though he obligingly moved the fingers on his cybernetic hand, twiddling them in a wave at his mechanic.

“How does that feel?” Riri asked. “Good? Too stiff?”

“They feel…whippy, if that makes sense,” George said, giving his hand a small shake and watching the fingers sway ever so slightly.

“Kinda dangly?” Riri added, and George nodded. “Might need to tighten it up a bit.”

She took up one of her tools (George considered himself fairly handy, but Riri’s assortment of tools was simply unfathomably huge), taking George’s wrist and prodding at the joints and knuckles of the hand. Of course, being a pirate vessel, the _Eclector_ was packed from stem to stern with all manner of “obtained” merchandise, including a vast collection of cybernetic limbs. Without the Stark battery to power his previous one—and unable to splice in a new power source thanks to manufactured obsolescence—George had been forced to make do with a much simpler Hammertech Industries model, though Riri had done all she could to improve on the design.

“Okay, give that a try,” Riri said, setting her omni-driver down and watching as George gave another twitch of his fingers. The movement felt much more fluid and controlled, and he reached to pick up a pen on the desk, holding it carefully between his fingers. “Better?”

“Much,” he nodded, and Riri winked at him.

“Glad to help,” she said. Standing, she collected the small toolkit she’d brought with her to George’s quarters (the repurposed captain’s quarters), making her way to the door and nearly running headlong into DeWolff on the way out. “Oh! Hey, uh…DeWolff. Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Don’t mention it,” DeWolff said flatly as she stepped past the mechanic. Riri shot one last look over her shoulder at George, who simply waved her off.

“See you at dinner,” he said. Springing a crisp mock-salute, Riri ducked out, the door sliding shut behind her.

“You two are getting along fabulously,” DeWolff observed, taking Riri’s vacated seat across from George at Phasma’s old desk. “One friendly little jaunt planetside, and she’s already talked you into – “

“DeWolff – “

“ – _treason_ , George,” DeWolff went on undeterred. “Treason. I never would have thought _you_ capable of such a thing. When we met, you told me that you joined the Empire to keep your daughter safe.”

“And look where that got her,” George said with a gesture at the ship around them. “Where it got _us_. The landscape is changing, DeWolff. There are parties interested in Gwen that the Empire can’t protect her against. In fact, the Empire may be _one_ of them.”

“What does your _sixteen-year-old daughter_ have to do with whatever galaxy-wide war is brewing?” DeWolff asked.

“Helen was a Jedi, Jean,” George said flatly. His first mate’s expression betrayed only the faintest amount of surprise, such a small shift that anyone but George would have missed it. “A powerful one. Master, member of the council, General of the Grand Army of the Republic, and a war hero. She didn’t tell me all of this until after I’d fallen for her, of course.”

From anyone else, Jean might have declared such a claim ludicrous, so unbelievable as to be outlandish. But George Stacy wasn’t one to spin so wild a story, and they both knew that. A profound silence fell upon the pair while she digested this revelation. When she didn’t seem to have come up with anything to say (she wasn’t one to waste time asking for extraneous details), George went on.

“One day, out of the blue, Helen showed up on my doorstep with a baby in her arms. I hadn’t seen her in almost a year, and there she was with this…little bundle with the most beautiful eyes. She made me promise I would do whatever I could to keep Gwen safe, told me I was all she had. And then…she left. It was the last time I ever saw her. Two months later…the Purge.”

“Oh, George,” DeWolff breathed.

“I’ve heard enough accounts of what happens when a Force-sensitive civilian is found,” George said. “If they aren’t killed on the spot, they’re taken and never heard from again. I will _not_ allow that to happen to my daughter. If that means joining the Rebellion, I will do so gladly.”

“Can you really be sure the Empire…that Vader is after Gwen?” DeWolff asked him.

“Riri’s been in touch with her Rebellion contacts,” George said. “There was a whole incident on Tatooine, a moisture farm was completely destroyed. They think the man that ran the place was a Jedi in hiding, and _I_ think Gwen somehow found her way there.”

“Could they have been trying to rescue her?” DeWolff asked, though even she didn’t sound convinced of the possibility; the two had no illusions regarding the Empire, both aware that they weren’t in the business of rescue missions. “Well, did they get away?”

“As far as I know, they evaded capture, but the trail goes cold after that.”

“It got hot again,” Riri’s voice said as the door to the captain’s quarters slid open once more to reveal her standing with a holopad held aloft. “Alderaan, five hours ago. I had VIZ check my channels while we dipped out of hyperspace for that course correction. It turns out the Jedi that found her also kept in touch with the Rebellion. Small galaxy.”

“Alderaan?” George asked. “That makes sense, I guess. I told her to get in touch with a friend of mine back in Delaney if we ever got separated. What happened on Alderaan?”

“Um…are you, like… _from_ Alderaan?” Riri said, her lips flattening into a straight line. George felt a creeping sense of dread at her sudden shift in demeanor; she had bad news.

“What happened?” he asked in level tones.

“Do you remember the planet-destroying weapon I mentioned?” she asked quietly.

“…No,” George flew to his feet. “Is she okay? Tell me!”

“She’s fine, she wasn’t…like, caught in the blast or anything,” Riri hastened to speak, stumbling over a few of her words. “The weapon went off a couple days ago, and she showed up well after that. There was a pretty big fight, but she wasn’t seriously hurt. She’s…not in the greatest emotional place, though. They had landed in Delaney, and…”

“What does this weapon do, exactly?” George asked. Whatever devastation had occurred would have been traumatic enough for Gwen; to see it in full effect on her hometown, with all of those memories…

“Well, Master Banner said it…destroys every living thing, down to the microbial level, on the surface of a planet,” Riri said. “Every plant, every animal, every germ and organism.”

“And he used it on Alderaan,” George said. As abruptly as he’d shot to his feet, he felt a dizzy wave pull him back into it with a creak. He was no stranger to loss, but to even try to comprehend the scope of it… The entire planet of Alderaan. His mind simply couldn’t accept it as a possibility.

“VIZ, drink service,” Riri said quietly, and her ever-present astromech companion whirred his head as he spun around to zip from the room.

“Sol-ol-oldiers, General Ririririri’s advisor requi-i-i-ires drink service!”

“I’m your advisor now?” George asked, and Riri shrugged with a wan smile.

“I’m testing out different titles,” she admitted. “Plus, saying Lieutenant General all the time is annoying.”

“Boy, you would never have made it in the military.”

“Thank you.”

……

The Millennium Falcon, Ganke had quickly learned, was in a near-constant state of breaking down, only kept running by the equally constant efforts of its two inhabitants. Rocket and Groot rarely spent any measurable time together in the cockpit, as one or both of them were usually off in some deep recess of the ship, fixing a flux converter or rewiring the power drive or making sure the waste disposal unit was still flowing the proper direction.

Evidently, there were stories. Ganke hadn’t asked further.

What he did ask was how he might go about helping the two. Having spent the last Big Event decidedly sidelined, he was beginning to feel a bit left out of the action, and while he was no expert, he at least knew a thing or two about engineering and mechanics. When he attempted to point this out to the captain, however, Rocket gave him a funny look (Ganke assumed; it was hard to read expressions from a raccoon) and shook his head with a dismissive wave of his paw.

“Look, kid, I get it,” he said. “You’re on a big-boy ship and you wanna see all the cool wires and gizmos go brr, but this is a high-performance machine.”

“It’s a barely- _functioning_ machine,” Ganke countered. “Groot’s down below fixing the landing gear so you don’t have to crash the ship. Again.”

“How’d you know about that?” Rocket asked him.

“Your landing struts don’t match,” Ganke explained. “You replaced the port one, I’m assuming after a crash. And I noticed the alarm screen earlier when Groot let me watch him fly.”

“You got your sticky kid hands all over my cockpit?” Rocket nearly shouted.

“I didn’t even touch anything, and I’m fourteen years old!” Ganke shot back. “I’m not some snot-nosed brat that’s gonna break everything. I actually have a clue what I’m doing. I just feel useless, sitting here and doing nothing. I wanna actually contribute something and help.”

Rocket stared at him with as thoughtful an expression as a raccoon was able before rolling his eyes.

“Alright, alright, I know you humies get that puberty stuff and get all mopey,” he finally said, motioning for Ganke to follow him toward the engine hatch. “We’re gonna change the fuel filter.”

“Isn’t it really dangerous to do that while the ship isn’t actually on the ground?”

“Well, in the long run it’s more dangerous if we don’t, so take your pick.”

……

_She dreamed of a mirror, one that was also a wall. Stretching up out of sight and on into infinity to her left and right, it ensured that she was never without the company of her own reflection._

_But the girl in the mirror wasn’t her._

_They looked similar—enough that it took Gwen a few seconds to realize that she wasn’t looking at herself—but her reflection had flowing blonde hair down to her collarbone, a length Gwen had never been able to tolerate. A single braid ran from the top of her head, stopping short of the rest of her locks. Reaching up to the mirror, Gwen watched the girl do the same until their hands met against the cool glass, causing her reflection’s pale blue robes to shift with the movement. The fabric and folds lifted to reveal a long lightsaber hooked to her belt, and in an instant, it all clicked into place._

_“Mom…”_

_The reflection silently spoke the word with her, Mom’s expression the same shock that she felt. Was this actually her mom from around the time that she had been Gwen’s age? If so, Pong Krell had been right; the resemblance was simply uncanny. More likely, though, Gwen’s subconscious had simply latched onto all of the comparisons and ran with it, projecting her appearance onto everything she’d learned recently about her mother._

_“I guess even_ I _think you’re a better me than me,” Gwen said, smirking to herself in a literal sense. “At sixteen? You were probably almost a real Jedi. Better with that thing than_ I _am, for sure.”_

_She looked down at Mom’s lightsaber and then at her own, the one Banner had given her. Reaching for her belt, she plucked the weapon from the magnetic holster—in the mirror, Mom did the same with her own—and activated it. The blades hissed out in unison, the sound reverberating strangely in this dreamscape. The familiar green blade of Banner’s old saber bloomed to life, as did the striking magenta of Mom’s dual-ended saberstaff._

_“I can barely swing one around, and you can deal with two of them,” Gwen observed, her voice choking up a bit as she spoke. “I guess…”_

_The young Jedi reached out, no longer copying her movements, and tucked a finger under Gwen’s chin. Giving a little tug upward, Gwen saw her mother’s face break into a sad little smile._

_“You can only fail when you become too afraid to try…”_

_She reached up to tap Gwen’s nose, and -_

Suddenly, she was awake, lying once again in the gloom of her bunk on the Millennium Falcon. A sense of déjà vu overtook her, and as she rolled onto her side, she half-expected to find Groot watching over her again.

Instead, it was Kaysix, his backlit eyes _much_ too close to her face.

“Gah!” she squawked, nearly bumping her head on the top of her bunk. “Kaysix! Too close! Personal space!”

“Your friend told me to watch you closely,” Kaysix said by way of explanation. “I am doing so.”

“My friend?” Gwen asked him, managing to still her jangled nerves for a moment. “Miles? Where’s he at?”

“He is taking a shower,” Kaysix said while Gwen sat up and shimmied past him. Looking down, she saw that she had been dressed in a cozy set of pajamas at some point, and her face heated up at the implications.

“Who changed my clothes?” she calmly asked her droid, who stood and fixed her with a beady-eyed look.

“Rio Morales dressed you in your present attire,” he said. “It was my wish to supervise, but she was adamant I wait outside.”

“That’s…comforting, at least,” Gwen said, picking at the soft fabric. At least it wasn’t Miles or (she shuddered) Rocket. “You wanted to supervise?”

Kaysix was silent for a long moment, and if a droid was capable of looking thoughtful, he did.

“When the _Sentinel_ was boarded by pirates, my programming experienced a paradigm shift,” he explained. “You became my sole responsibility, as per the Civilian Preservation Protocol optional in all KX-series droids. When it was activated, it was moved to the top of my load order, above all of my routines. Following the crash to Tatooine and my brief deactivation, it has remained there, long enough that it has begun to generate its own subroutines. My artificial intelligence is not programmed to care and preserve life, and yet I find that I must do so in regards to you.”

It was the most Gwen had ever heard _any_ droid speak at once, making it all the more shocking that it had come from Kaysix.

“So,” she probed, “you…care about me?”

“It is not ideal,” Kaysix said bluntly. “It is completely contradictory to my self-preservation matrices. On Alderaan, I deduced that you would need time to yourself due to the distressing news you had learned. Organics are slower to process new information given emotion’s ability to disrupt the process. When I learned that you had encountered a dangerous situation while alone, I took measures to ensure that in the future I would be able to continue preserving you.”

“You were worried about me,” Gwen summarized. “And now you don’t wanna leave me alone in case something else bad happens.”

“That is an accurate simplification,” Kaysix agreed with a miniscule nod.

“Kaysix, that’s really sweet,” Gwen said, managing a tiny smile. Her droid was learning to care. Artificial intelligence had been leaning against sentience for some time now, though most droid manufacturers refused to acknowledge the mounting evidence of such a thing lest it open a whole host of moral and ethical quandaries. Still, if Kaysix was developing sentiment, who was Gwen to doubt it?

The moment was interrupted by Miles poking his head into the room, his curly mop of black hair looking extra frizzy from his recent shower. He seemed surprised to see Gwen up and around, his eyes widening just a bit as a smile split his face.

“I knew the minute I left for a shower you’d wake up.”

“Were you watching me?” Gwen asked, and his face darkened a bit in a blush.

“I mean…Mom said I should keep an eye on you in case you started freaking out in your sleep or some crazy Jedi stuff started to happen,” he said. “It wasn’t like…you know, I was just staring at you or something. I was on my holopad, catching up on the news. Your droid was here the whole time, too.”

Gwen turned to Kaysix, who raised his hand in a small wave as though to remind her of his presence.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Miles shrugged, reaching up to scratch at his ear a bit. “So, uh… How you feeling?”

“I keep…waiting for it to hit me,” Gwen said with a little shrug. “Everything that happened, I’m like…sure it’s all gonna come crashing down on me. It doesn’t really feel very healthy that I’m…kinda numb.”

“Well, you’ve been through a lot,” Miles said. “Maybe you’re in shock or something? That’s not that weird.”

“How’s Bruce?” Gwen asked. “What happened?”

Miles grimaced at that, and Gwen felt her heart sink. Had something awful happened to the Jedi Master? If he’d gotten hurt or killed defending her because of some silly tantrum she’d had, she could never forgive herself.

“Miles, what happened?” she asked again, and Miles let a small sigh.

“Former Jedi Master Pong Krell amputated Bruce Banner’s arms,” Kaysix informed her in conversational tones. “His left arm was removed just below his shoulder and his right above his elbow.”

“Well…I wasn’t going to be quite as blunt, but…yeah,” Miles said with an annoyed look at the droid.

“Oh,” Gwen groaned, dropping her head into her hands. “This is – “

“Not your fault,” Miles cut her off with a firm look as though he knew she would say such a thing. “You didn’t make Krell do it.”

“But I’m the reason he was there,” Gwen found herself insisting. “If I hadn’t gone running away…”

“Bruce wouldn’t want you blaming yourself over this,” Miles said. “You do that, you’re just giving _him_ something else to worry about, and then everyone’s just worried for a bunch of stupid reasons.”

“That’s…oddly insightful,” Gwen said.

“I’m good for that sometimes,” Miles told her with a crooked smile. “Look, Mom’s making tea. It’s that good Corulag spiced stuff, got a nice flavor to it. Come have some and just cool off after everything.”

“Yeah…okay,” Gwen said, turning to her droid. “Thanks for everything, Kaysix. Do you mind if I go have some tea?”

It felt strange to be asking him such a thing, but he had been exhibiting such bizarrely sentient tendencies that she felt like she was obligated to treat him as such.

“I will run a diagnostic while you are gone,” he said. “Perhaps it will help me to understand these new subroutines.”

“Good luck,” Gwen told him as she followed Miles into the corridor. Even through her thick socks, the chill of the _Falcon_ ’s metal deck bit at her soles, though it was hardly a new sensation to her. The gritty film of dust and dirt certainly was, however; Dad would have been absolutely livid if the _Sentinel_ had been allowed to get even half this filthy.

But thinking of Dad just led to memories of home, and she wasn’t ready to deal with that.

“Where’s Bruce now?” she asked Miles, in an effort to distract herself.

“We jabbed him with every stim we could find,” Miles said, “set him up on a cot in one of the cargo bays.”

“You just stuck him in the cargo bay?”

“Well, most of the medical equipment Rocket has isn’t meant for humanoids,” he explained, “and Groot can just…grow back. But Rocket’s…obtained a lot of medical equipment in the past, so we rigged up a triage center.”

“With all of the stuff he ‘obtains’, he’s gonna need a bigger ship pretty soon,” Gwen observed, and Miles chuckled at that.

“My theory is, he’s got a hoard somewhere, and he drops by occasionally and just unloads the ship before going off to find more stuff,” he said. “It’s the only thing that makes sense with how much he claims he’s taken.”

“I doubt that, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if it was true,” Gwen said thoughtfully.

In the kitchen, the spiced scent of tea made even the small and gloomy room feel cozy, as did the welcoming sight of Rio’s smile as she poured out three cups. Without even consulting them, she added a generous serving of blue milk to each cup, earning a small grimace from Gwen.

“Now, come on, don’t make a face,” Rio said with a rueful smile, the same expression any Mom wore when coaxing a child into trying something new. “Blue milk is sweet and creamy, it’s all a good cup of spiced tea needs.”

“I guess if it’s in tea, it shouldn’t be so…”

“Overpowering?” Miles suggested.

“Corulag tea has a very bold flavor,” Rio said. “Blue milk is the only thing I’ve found that cuts through it.”

Hesitantly, Gwen scooped up a warm cup and took a small sip. It was just shy of scalding, hot enough to warm her but not too much so. The taste was spicy but not in the same way that Rio’s cooking tended toward, instead a bouquet of flavors that was muted perfectly by the sweet and creamy milk. Just as she gulped down the first sip, Gwen went back for a longer drink with a noise of delight.

“Mm,” she hummed, sliding onto a seat across from Miles’s mother. “Okay, this isn’t bad. I like it.”

“I knew there was hope for you, yet,” Rio told her, and Gwen let a quiet little giggle. “Now, I have some sweet biscuits cooling off, so those’ll have to be for the second cup. If you try to eat them now, they’ll just fall apart”

“You’ve really been busy,” Gwen observed, watching Rio putter around and rinse off some dishes.

“When family is hurting, I go to the kitchen,” she explained. “I make tea, I make cookies, I slow-cook a stew.”

Indeed, Gwen noticed that the lone cooker set into the kitchen counter was currently heating a truly massive metal pot with a mirror-like finish. The warped image of her own reflection stared back at her, and even distorted, she could tell she looked miserable. Her eyes were red and puffy, both from crying and a general lack of anything resembling a good night’s sleep in much too long. Her hair looked like something had been nesting in it recently, and it seemed her recent exposure to Tatooine’s twin suns had left her with a slight burn across her nose and cheeks.

She wished she were the type of girl to freckle in the sun, but even without an excessive amount of space travel, the Stacies were a pale lot, prone to crisping under even the briefest amount of sunlight.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the gentle clack of a bowl being set on the counter in front of her, and her cup of tea was joined by a heaping serving of delicious-smelling stew. As soon as the aroma hit her, Gwen became acutely aware of how hungry she was; it had probably been hours since breakfast, and she’d exerted herself quite a bit on Alderaan. Spoon in hand, she dug in hungrily.

“Eat up, there’s plenty,” Rio said happily. “Miles, is that boy awake yet? Harvey?”

“Harley,” Miles said. “I can go check.”

“Would you?” Rio asked him, and Miles climbed to his feet, shooting Gwen one last smile before leaving.

“Harley?” Gwen asked as the door hissed shut behind him.

“The stormtrooper boy you found,” Rio said.

“He came with us?” Gwen asked through a mouthful of food. “Is that…safe?”

“Oh, Rocket made sure he didn’t have any tracking devices or communicators on him,” Rio assured her. “We couldn’t very well leave him behind on Alderaan. He wouldn’t have made it.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s resting,” she said. “I don’t think the boy’s had a good night’s sleep in months.”

“And where are we going?” Gwen asked. She’d been unconscious for the planning phase of this leg of their journey and desperately needed to catch up. It helped that the more she thought forward, the less she found herself dwelling on…well, everything else, and Rio seemed only too happy to answer her questions while doling out some cookies and refreshing Gwen’s tea.

“We are on our way to a Rebel base on Seelos,” she said. “They have a pretty strong presence there, and medical facilities that’ll be able to fix up Bruce with a new set of arms.”

“I can’t believe Krell would do that,” Gwen said with a shake of her head. “He was a Jedi master.”

“The ones that rise the highest have the farthest to fall,” Rio said sagely. “That’s why some say a fallen Jedi is worse than a Sith that was trained from a young age. A Sith never had a chance. He was raised to be cruel, and all they know is the desire to be more powerful and step all over the galaxy to get there.”

“But a fallen Jedi was good and decided _not_ to be,” Gwen guessed, and Rio nodded with a grim expression.

“They were heroes,” she said. “They were the best in the galaxy. No matter what they were up against, a Jedi’s duty was to preserve life, peace, and harmony. Some just…lost their way.”

“Like Bruce,” Gwen said.

“Like Bruce,” Rio agreed. “He found his way back, though.”

“Did you two know each other?” Gwen asked, taking a bite of a crumbling cookie and finding the flavor a perfect blend of sweet and lightly spiced, the same as the tea. “When he was a Jedi?”

“No,” Rio said with a shake of her head. “No, I met Bruce on my first day in Anchorhead. Miles was barely a year old, and my husband had just…gone missing one day. I was so scared of what could happen to us, I got as far away from Mos Ekla as I could—I didn’t want us to get scooped up and sold into slavery by the Hutts. I was…alone, with this baby boy depending on me, surrounded by gangsters and bounty hunters. And some…man walks right up to me, and he asks me if I’m okay.”

Gwen smiled a bit at the warm expression on Rio’s face as she stared unseeingly at a far wall, lost in a wistful memory.

“It must have been some kind of Jedi thing, because I felt so calm, for the first time in weeks,” she went on. “He sat, and he listened while I told him everything that had happened, with my husband and the Hutts and running away and the fact that we were effectively homeless on one of the most unforgiving planets in the galaxy.”

“And he took you in,” Gwen said.

“He took us in,” Rio echoed. “Gave us a home, a place to raise my son in safety. We started up a moisture farm, and we’ve been partners ever since.”

“Are you two…together?” Gwen asked, and Rio rolled her eyes with a rueful smile. Likely, she was used to hearing the question.

“Bruce and I have only ever been very close friends,” she said. “Jedi are forbidden from romantic attachments, for one thing. But it also…never felt that way. Bruce has been like a brother to me. Trying to turn it into something romantic would ruin it, I feel.”

“Are you worried about him?” Gwen asked quietly.

“I always worry about him,” Rio said. “He never wanted to get involved in the Rebellion. He’d grown so jaded by everything he’d been through during the Separatist Crisis, he just wanted to retire to a quiet life. But the Purge happened, and the Empire took over. Now, he feels something changing in the Force. There’s a conflict brewing, and he knows he’s going to be pulled into it. And he’s just so tired, the poor thing.”

“Sometimes I just… I know it’s childish and…and dumb, but I just want the Empire to leave us alone,” Gwen sighed. “Tatooine and your farm, my dad…Alderaan.”

“I know it feels like every time you turn the corner, some new disaster is just falling on your head,” Rio said, “but you can’t lose hope. The second you give up, the moment you decide it’s not worth it to keep going, you get swept up in all of it. All of the negativity, all of the darkness, it’ll catch up and take you somewhere awful. You’ll become the worst version of yourself, twisted and too afraid to try to find hope again.”

“I’m guessing you’ve seen this happen?” Gwen asked. Rio’s lips pressed together in a thin line.

“A few times, to people I thought I knew very well,” she said with an air of finality on the subject.

Gwen didn’t inquire further.

……

“Miles!” Ganke’s voice called from down the corridor, and Miles turned to see his best friend making his way toward him wearing a jumpsuit that was absolutely caked in grease. Despite this, he bore a huge grin as he pulled away a set of workman’s goggles, letting them fall around his neck to leave a perfect outline behind. “What’s up? Food ready?”

“Yeah, Mom’s got stew in the galley,” Miles told him with a thumb over his shoulder. “Why are you so filthy?”

“We replaced the fuel filter,” Ganke said proudly, “and then one of the landing struts needed greased.”

“Did any of the grease actually get _onto_ the strut?” Miles asked, gesturing at Ganke’s present state.

“Of course,” he said with a flippant wave of his hand, the movement sending a glob of oil flying at the wall. “We just needed to do some adjustments on the hydraulics while we were down there, so I had to do some climbing, but Rocket didn’t figure that out until _after_ the strut was greased.”

“Sounds like a blast,” Miles said. “But speaking of blast, you might wanna change before you go into the galley. You step near an open flame on the stove, you’re gonna light up like a torch.”

“Nah, yeah, I got that,” Ganke said, following Miles as he made his way toward the guest quarters. “Where you headed?”

“I’m gonna see how Harley’s doing,” Miles told him. “He might be hungry.”

“Is it me, or is it like bizarre to have an actual stormtrooper on board?” Ganke asked. “Like…they’re normal _people_.”

“This one is, at least,” Miles said. “I dunno about _all_ of ‘em.”

“Still, that’s something I don’t think I’ll be able to not think about the next time I’m fighting one,” Ganke said. “Like…it’s a human being, you know?”

“If we’re lucky, we won’t have to fight too many of them in the future,” Miles said.

“Well, we’re on our way to a Rebel base,” Ganke said. “It’s possible.”

“Yeah, but they’re not gonna let a couple kids actually get involved in the fight,” Miles reasoned. “They’ll probably stick us in a workshop and have us fix droids or something.”

“Man, are there moisture farms on Seelos?” Ganke asked. “If I have to fix another vaporator, I’m gonna jump off an actual cliff.”

“If we end up working on vaporators, I’ll go _with_ you to find a cliff,” Miles assured him.

They arrived at the guest bunks, the door sliding open to reveal Harley the Stormtrooper wearing only his freshly-laundered uniform pants and performing a small stretching routine that Miles felt was a bit gratuitous in showing off the results of his boot camp’s workout regimen. Standing straight, the soldier turned to reveal a tattoo over his right pec, a bird of some sort with a long fanning tail extending down to just above his navel. Not wanting to be seen staring at this guy’s physique (it was impressive, though), Miles looked up. Harley had an oval-shaped face with a strong jaw that was currently showing hints of a five-o’clock shadow. He kept his curly brown hair in an easily maintainable undercut, which of course also looked good on him.

Miles was deeply glad that Gwen hadn’t accompanied him.

“Oh, hey,” Harley said, reaching for his shirt. “We there yet?”

“Still got about a half hour,” Miles said while Ganke moved past him toward the shower. “Sleep okay?”

“Best I’ve had in a long time,” Harley nodded as he slid into his shirt. It was skintight, of course. “Oh, and…I wanted to thank you, man. You stuck up for me back there when your girlfriend had me. You coulda let her cut my head off, and I wouldn’t have blamed you at all. So…you know, thanks.”

Of _course_ he was also a good guy.

“Nah, don’t mention it,” Miles insisted, not bothering to correct the assumption that Gwen was his girlfriend. “She was…a little messed up.”

“More than a little,” Harley said with a distant expression. “Is she… _from_ Alderaan?”

“She grew up there,” Miles nodded. “I guess she hadn’t been back in a while. Her dad’s a captain in the Imperial Navy. George Stacy?”

“That’s George Stacy’s daughter?” Harley said, sounding a little awed.

“Is he a pretty big deal?” Miles asked.

“He’s known, at least,” Harley said. “Captain Stacy busted Bil Bitzer.”

“Who?”

“Arms dealer. One of the biggest names in illegal weapons trade since…well, the Trade Federation,” Harley said. “If you weren’t supposed to own it, he could sell it to you. Captain Stacy finally cornered him on Nar Shaddaa, selling bootleg lightsabers.”

“How do you bootleg a lightsaber?” Miles asked. “I thought only Jedi could build them. They need like…the Force to function right.”

“You need the Force to actually _use_ one,” Harley corrected him. “You know, without slicing all your limbs off. A lightsaber itself is pretty simple to build. Power source, emitter, focus, casing, done.”

“How do you know?” Miles asked.

“The boot camp I trained at was also where they trained Purge Troopers, in the Ontothan System,” Harley told him. “These guys were trained to hunt Jedi. I sliced into a few of their training modules during downtime.”

“You can do that?”

“I’ve always been pretty good with computers,” Harley said with a little shrug. “And guns.”

“I built my own blaster when I was ten,” Miles said.

“Yeah?” Harley asked, sounding impressed. “How’d it fire?”

“It…blew up a little,” Miles confessed. “At least I had time to toss it before it took off my fingers.”

“Hey, maybe you built a grenade and didn’t realize it,” Harley told him.

Miles didn’t really know what to say to that.

“I smell food,” Harley said after a short pause.

“Yeah, Mom made blubberbird stew,” Miles told him. “It’s probably a bit on the spicy side.”

“That sounds amazing,” Harley said in excited tones. “I haven’t had anything but MREs for the past six months.”

“Alright, but just don’t tell Mom that,” Miles insisted. “She might cry.”

……

The door slid shut behind Pong Krell, a lone beam of slanting light shrinking to nothingness and leaving him in a black void. This was the only room aboard his Q-Ship he had truly never seen, as the oppressive darkness within seemed to resist all attempts at illumination. He was sure it was some manner of Dark Side technique, twisting the place to appear enshrouded in an impenetrable fog of some sort.

His master was quite keen to remind him as often as possible that he was truly adept at ensnaring the minds of “lesser beings”.

A dim white glow flickered to life in the center of the room, coalescing into the translucent form of his master himself. Little was visible of him aside from a flowing black cloak and a pair of tentacle-like appendages framing the lower half of his face, which gleamed pale and stark against his attire. At the sight of him, Pong immediately took a knee, staring down at his feet and intoning his next words gravely.

“My master.”

“Rise, apprentice,” his master spoke in a voice like metal boots on gravel, and Pong stood to face him. “The Force quaked on this day.”

“I felt it as well, Master,” Pong said. “A movement unlike any since the Purge.”

“What news of Alderaan?” his master asked, though his tone suggested that he might already have had an inkling as to what had transpired during the ill-fated mission.

“We failed to establish a foothold,” Pong told him, deciding that candor was best. His master seemed pleased at the Force’s reaction to the day’s events; perhaps this mission had not been such a setback after all? “Jedi Master Bruce Banner and several of his companions happened upon us, and the resulting battle alerted the Empire to our presence.”

“And you didn’t succeed in capturing the Stacy girl for your friend, Osborn,” his master concluded, and Pong inwardly sighed. There truly was nothing he was able to keep secret from Master Chthon.

“No, Master, I did not,” he bit out.

“Your friendship with the human has thus far been a harmless indulgence,” his master said, the hologram flickering to the floor in front of him and beginning to pace slowly left and right. “And his contributions to our efforts have been considerable. Be that as it may, his interest in the girl is troubling. Should his designs on her come to fruition, everything we’ve worked for could crumble around us.”

“What would you have me do, Master?” Pong asked him.

“The girl’s destiny is her own to find,” his master went on. “I see before her a great and terrible struggle, one that will harden her, galvanize her into exactly what is needed to rock the galaxy to its core. She will prove a valuable distraction while we continue our mission. For now, you must leave her be. Let Osborn believe that you are doing all you can, but do not interfere with Gwen Stacy.”

Pong knew better than to protest. He suffered no delusions regarding his standing with Master Chthon; he was expendable at best and a disappointment at worst. His own notions of friendship and honor were seen as nothing more than a holdover from his days as a Jedi and certainly not something to be entertained in any capacity. The fact that his friendship with Norman Osborn went back decades—all the way to his days as a padawan—was inconsequential in the eyes of the Black Order.

“Do you understand, my apprentice?” his master asked. “The girl _must_ complete her journey.”

“I understand, Master,” Pong said, bowing deeply to hide his grimace. Norman wouldn’t be pleased.

Frankly, neither was he.

……

“ _Alright, kiddos, strap in. We’re comin’ outta hyperspace in ten.”_

“Minutes or seconds?” Gwen asked.

“ _Nine!_ ” Rocket’s voice came over the radio.

“Seconds,” Miles said, and they hurried to retake the familiar seats on the couch in the _Millennium Falcon_ ’s lounge. Gwen saw Harley drop into the seat next to her (he was much leaner without his armor on, though Gwen couldn’t help but appreciate his physique under the skintight cling of his shirt), and he fumbled with the harness for a moment before she reached over to help him.

“Thanks,” he said. “Imperial drop ships, we just hang onto the overhead rack and hope for a smooth entry.”

“I always rode on the shuttles,” Gwen admitted with a sheepish shrug. “We had the fancy harnesses you could just clip right up front.”

“Did you ever ride in a _Delta_ -class?” Harley asked her, grinning. “With the _‘Watch your head’_ warning even though the entryway was – “

“Like two and a half meters high?” Gwen giggled. “I always wondered about that, like…what kind of freakishly tall stormtroopers are you recruiting?”

“Maybe it was in case Groot ever rode with them,” Harley said with a knowing nod, and Gwen couldn’t stop a bubble of laughter at the image of Groot in stormtrooper armor, speaking his signature phrase through the voice modulator.

“What’s so funny?” Miles asked from Harley’s other side. He seemed a bit put-out at the seating arrangement, which meant he had to lean over the larger boy to join the conversation.

“Oh, just…” Gwen trailed off, letting another snort as she saw Groot peeking his head into the room to check on them. He smiled genially and waved before making his way down the corridor, his roots and branches anchoring him against the turbulence beginning to shake the ship. They were in the atmosphere of Seelos, then, and Groot was probably going to make sure the ship made it to the surface without losing any important pieces along the way.

“Groot’s gonna be a stormtrooper,” Harley said in response to Miles’s question. The sheer absurdity of the answer (and Miles’s utterly perplexed expression) only served to break Gwen down into another fit of giggles. It felt good to laugh, though she couldn’t deny there was an unmistakable edge to the sound that bordered on hysterical.

There was definitely a lot that she had yet to properly internalize.

“I just realized I sat right between you two,” Harley said with an apologetic grin as he turned to her. “Sorry about that, didn’t mean to keep you away from your boyfriend.”

“My—oh, he’s – “ Gwen had to stop herself from blurting out anything particularly mean in her haste to correct Harley. She didn’t want to hurt Miles’s feelings after he’d been so kind to her, especially as he was looking studiously at his knees in a way that had Gwen wondering if he’d ignored a chance to fix Harley’s mistaken impression. “My life’s a little too crazy for a boyfriend right now.”

“Your life’s a little crazy, full-stop,” Ganke said from beyond Miles. “I’m surprised you haven’t had a full-scale breakdown yet.”

“I haven’t had the time to,” Gwen muttered half-jokingly.

They reached the surface rather quickly (perhaps too much so; Gwen thought she might have heard Rocket shouting something about “stabilizers” from the cockpit), touching down only fifteen minutes after they’d strapped in. As they unbuckled, Ganke reached for his pocket, unearthing a holo-phone and beginning to tap away at the touch screen.

“Still no signal,” he grumbled.

“I wouldn’t really wanna be trying to connect to the holonet on the super-secret Rebellion hideaway,” Miles observed, and Ganke froze for a second before quietly pocketing the device once more.

“I’ve just never heard of Seelos before,” he said. “I thought Galactipedia might have something on it.”

“They’d probably pick somewhere more secure than a planet you can look up on Galactipedia,” Gwen said with a wry smile, and Ganke’s face reddened a bit. “I do it, too, though. As soon as we’d land on a new planet, I’d be on my phone trying to find out everything I could.”

Come to think of it, she pondered with a huff as they disembarked, she’d left her phone back on the _Sentinel_. She had a lot of really great pictures she’d taken all over the galaxy, including a whole album of childhood photos of Alderaan –

Abruptly, her mood seemed to drain as the crushing reality of what had happened on her home planet slammed into her all over again, and she could feel her mind attempting to close off, retreating away from the present as it was pulled down the familiar spiral. Her way of life, her family, her home, absolutely _everything_ was lost, stolen while she’d been helpless to do anything more than watch.

It wasn’t _fair_.

She felt a now familiar but no less strange pull, and she panicked as a plasteel barrel nearby began to rattle and slide toward her, drawn in by her subconscious use of the Force. Clenching a fist, she sucked in a deep breath, trying to contain the outburst. The last thing she needed was Rocket mad at her from crumpling his lounge like a drink can.

Looking up, Gwen saw Miles peeking his head back into the room, and she realized she’d stewing in her misery for several seconds. Ganke and Harley were already ahead of them, talking animatedly as they disembarked the ship (apparently, they’d really hit it off), leaving the two of them alone.

“You good?” Miles asked.

“…No, not really,” Gwen admitted with a shrug and a humorless laugh. “Um…I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings before. When Harley said we were…”

“No, that’s fine,” Miles said with a brisk shake of his head. “He’d said something before, and it just felt awkward to like say anything about it at the time.”

“There’s…nothing we need to talk about, is there?” Gwen asked, and Miles hastily shook his head again, sending his thick curly mop flopping a bit with the movement.

“Hey, like you said, life’s too crazy right now,” he said with a grin. “Besides, we’ve only known each other, what…three days?”

“It feels like way longer,” Gwen said.

“Gwen, Miles, get a move on!” Rio’s voice called from the ramp, and the two hastened to join her, passing through the round corridor and down out of the ship to emerge into a fairly massive hangar that looked like it had been carved directly into the side of a mountain. The expansive stone cavern around them housed a veritable armada of ships, and no two looked alike. Old-Republic-era ships built decades before Gwen’s grandparents had ever been born sat alongside Mon Calamari battleships that looked fresh off the production line, leaving Gwen to wonder what sort of engineering team could possibly keep track of such a wide spread of technology. Overhead, an eclectic array of lights shone bright white upon them, illuminating the whole cavern.

“Gwen!”

She froze, having heard a voice she’d been afraid to think she might never hear again. As her feet found solid ground, she looked toward the source and found her vision tunneling around a single face set with a warm smile. Unable to think of anything else to do, she took off toward him, weaving through a crowd of people as they converged on the _Falcon_. It didn’t matter who they were, nothing mattered in this moment except the fact that any distance between herself and her goal was inexcusable.

She threw herself at him once she was within arm’s reach, and he pulled her into a strong, familiar embrace. For the first time in days, she felt herself truly relax, going limp against him as she spoke around the lump blocking her voice.

“Dad…”

“My Gwendy,” Dad rumbled, his whole chest buzzing with his words as Gwen nestled against it. “You’re okay.”

“Yeah,” Gwen breathed. “Now I am.”


End file.
